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1. Does God exist or not?

2. Confusion about love...a dream


3. What is love?
4. The meaning behind Suffering
5. St. Paul's world
6. The Mystery of the Mormons
7. The Evolution of Evolution
8. Thought on Fire
9. The Priesthood and Petty Women
10. True Foundation of Evil
11. Behind the scenes on tough questions
12. Love letters from....a friend
13. Such distortion on Abortion
14. What's with you and the tattoo?
15. Where is a Good God when you need him?
16. Celibacy under fire
17. Leftovers from the Da Vinci Code
18. Science class with an Atheist
19. Can reality be known?

1. Does God exist or not?


Outline

1. Reasons not to believe in God.


a. We can't sense Him.
b. If God existed, He would not allow evil.
c. If God existed, He would limit my freedom.
d. A loving God can't exist, because love does not exist.

2. Why these reasons are not true.


a. Just because I can't sense something doesn't mean it does not exist.
b. Just because bad things happen doesn't mean that God does not exist.
c. I am not totally free whether God exists or not.
d. Just because I haven't experienced love does not mean that there is not a loving God.

3. Reasons for Why God exists.


a. We long for a someone who will make us always happy.
b. Someone had to tell us what good and bad are, because we didn't make those categories up.
c. If things are organized and planned, then there must be someone who planned and ordered it.
d. Something can't come from nothing.
e. The risk of Him existing is too great, its not worth taking the chance.
f. Ever since man existed, from the records we have, he was always religious, or believed in some
sort of God. Being an Atheist is an exception.

1. Why don't people believe in God.


Before we see how to demonstrate that God really exists, we have to see first why would
somebody say he doesn't exist. Otherwise we won't know how to defend Him. A Doctor can't give a
medicine unless he knows what the real problem is.
A. They can't see (or sense) him. This is the simplest problem. How can we believe in something
we can't see, or do experiments on or observe?

B. They can't believe in something that would allow bad things to exist. They see bad things
happen or exist to others or themselves and wonder that if God were really this all powerful all loving
being, why then does he allow these things to happen or be?

C. They don't want to believe in something that limits their "absolute" freedom. To believe in God
means to believe in a someone who is stronger,wiser and better than me. Someone who would have
"authority" over me because he would be in control if he were this all powerful being and they don't
want to have someone over them, watching them, wanting to direct them to where they don't want to
go.

D. They have never experienced love in their lives so they have no idea how a being could be "all
loving". They can't imagine somebody loving them truly because no one has ever loved them in any
way during their life. It is the most difficult problem to solve.

2. Why these problems do not show that God does not exist.

A. Just because I can't sense something or observe it does not mean it doesn't exist. Did viruses not
exist 200 years ago because no one could see them with an instrument like a microscope? NO. Did
electricity not exist 200 years ago because we didn't know how to use it? NO. Did the big bang never
happened just because we never saw it? NO. Would your mother not exist if we had no evidence for it,
no photos, video, records. NO. Does the president of Poland not exist now just because I don't sense
him now. NO. Does love not exist because I don't see it? NO.

All these things I know exist or did exist because of their effects that are now. NOT because I can
sense them. I know you had a Mom because you are here. Its something I conclude, figure out, know,
not sense. Your Mom is the cause of you the effect of the cause. I don't need senses for this.

B. Just because bad thing happen does not mean that God does not exist or that he is not good and
loving. Does what is bad cancel out what is good? NO. Just because Hitler was bad does that mean that
every person is bad? NO. Just because you do a bad thing, does that mean you are always bad? NO. So
if bad things happen does that mean that God can't be all loving and all powerful and good? NO. What
it means is that there is a reason why bad things exist that I don't know and that I have to find out.

Besides, many times we call something bad which is not bad at all. When a rock falls off a cliff,
the poor rock is doing what its made to do, which is fall. But we call this bad if it falls on someone's
head, and we cry out to God and ask why he didn't stop the rock in mid air so that the person would not
get hit. But God doesn't have to do this because he gave us the possibility to think and to observe and to
conclude "maybe if I walk beside the mountain a rock could fall." So in the end we get angry at God
because we want to be lazy and have him do everything. God showed his love for us by giving us the
possibility to think and we shouldn't put that gift in the closet.

The only thing that can be really bad in the end is a person. He can decide to do something bad.
Why doesn't God stop it? Because he wants to respect each person's freedom, so he won't stop you
otherwise you would be just like a tree. God is above and stronger than what is bad, even though he
allows it to respect our freedom. From the bad many times good comes either way. From concentration
camps have come great men and women of character who followed their principles and gave example
to others of how to conquer evil with their self control and moral strength. This in turn allowed others
motivation to do the same. We are purified and strengthened and become better people when there is
conflict and pain.

Buy why do the angels and man choose bad things in the first place? Well there is an answer, but it
is very complicated and abstract. So we will have to leave it for another time. (I have written on this but
it would take too long to explain it here. You can ask me afterwards if you want to know.
http://wonderablaze.blogspot.com/2008/01/true-foundation-of-evil.html)

C. I don't have absolute freedom whether God exists or not. I can't fly with my hands just because I
want to. If I had complete freedom to kill who I wanted then prisons would not exist. If nothing I did
was really wrong then I would never feel remorse for what I did for anything. It would be just like
tying my shoe, totally neutral and natural. Are we really happy when we follow our whims? It may
appear to be so at the beginning, but in the end many who do exactly what they want are the ones who
fall into depression, commit suicide, divorce, etc. Besides, is someone really free who can't go to sleep
without watching 2 hours of porn or get drunk, or inject themselves with something like drugs? Aren't
they in one sense dependent on it, chained to it? Doesn't addiction mean that you are not free?

D. Very similar to point A, just because I have never experienced love does not mean that it does
not exist. I can see others loving and caring, I can see others giving their lives, even though I may not
understand it. Love is NOT something I can just "know", I have to experience it. Its like saying its
impossible to run a marathon just because you never tried it or impossible to sing because you haven't
done it. You can tell me exactly how to do a surgery but until I do it myself I won't really "know" how
to do it. Love is giving yourself for the good of the other, forgetting yourself, sacrificing yourself and
looking to see what the other needs. Mother Theresa changed the world because she loved others and
the whole world admitted it. I have to challenge the atheist to love in that way for a month and see if
you are the same. I promise you will not be. If you don't have the courage to try it then you don't have
the right to say its impossible or crazy.

3. Reasons to believe in God

A. The Catechism mentions a few. One is we are not happy with anything here. "with his longings
for the infinite and for happiness, man questions himself about God's existence." If we were happy with
just one thing, we would stick with it, but what we see is that after buying one car, a man wants
another, after one pair of shoes, a woman wants another. We always want something bigger, better,
more exciting, or simply more of it, if not, it gets boring. (More Wii games, more rides at Six Flages,
better cell phones, etc. etc.) People get bored because nothing here really satisfies. We want something
that will never get boring, that will always make me happy no matter what, and it can't be a thing,
because we are happier with people than with things, and someone who will never fail, who will
always be there, or we will simply not be happy.

B. You can't say something is good or bad unless you have something that tells you it's so. The
same person who says God does not exist will say that we say something is good or bad based on
culture. Well, culture is made up of people so people decided it. Is it just based on whim? If that is the
case you can't complain if someone steals your wallet or takes your life because they just think
differently than you. If there is no objective way of saying what is good and bad then society falls apart
and you could not consider that "bad".
Everyone has this moral conscience that tugs a certain way telling us what is good and bad, even
those who don't follow it. It's universal and we didn't give it to ourselves. Does a computer give itself
the possibility to do all those processes without someone having programed it by means of zeros and
ones? No. If something is good it was made good by someone, or nothing is good and bad and these
words don't mean anything and we can do "what we want" which means that we can destroy society
and everyone in it if we want to.

Something is good if it helps me be better in some way. Am I better by sitting and doing nothing,
by being lazy? No. So that is bad. Would you be happy being absolutely alone? No. So killing everyone
around me is bad. These things don't help me be better. What makes me better is good and that is what
we need to look for. So what will make me the 'best'? Unfortunately nothing here, so again there has to
be a someone who tells me what is really good and who can make me the best I can be.

C. Everything works too well here to not be planned. If I just kicked a soccer ball in the air, would
it just automatically go into a goal? No. I have to direct it there. So if everything around me directs
itself somewhere, like a bird making its nest, and it always does this, not just sometimes, and the bird
itself is pretty dumb, then what taught it? Why do things always work the same almost always? They
wouldn't if there wasn't something behind it directing it. Someone who can think like you and me.

D. Can something come out of nothing? No. Is there any case in this world where that would
happen? There is not one example. Did you come out of thin air? No. Did your parents? No. Did your
great, great.....etc. grandparents? No. Do elephants come from trees? No. So given the fact that
everything here is limited and was made at some time or other, if there was not something or someone
who always was or existed then nothing would be now. Can five million train cars move without an
engine pulling or pushing? No. You gotta have something first that has the power to move or make or
nothing moves and nothing is made.

E. It is simply dangerous to pretend that God does not exist. Given that none of the arguments
above that the atheist gives show that he does not exist, and there is really no argument to prove he
doesn't exist, its very risky to just 'think he ain't there'. For if he is and there is a right way and wrong
way of doing things, then what happens if you don't coincide with what is right? Do you think nothing
will happen? On this earth there are always consequences for our actions, if I smoke, I get cancer,
drink, get drunk and get myself killed, etc. so why would there not be the same afterwards? It would be
ridiculous not to think so. It would be like receiving a gold medal for running just by sitting in a chair.
What is the worth of that medal? It would mean that after killing 1000 people the government just tells
me "Just don't do it again". What meaning does it have? It's just one big joke. I can't think there will be
no consequences after I die because it isn't like that here so I have no right to think it will be so
afterwards. I have no proof of it.

F. Throughout the entire history of mankind, from the oldest recording that we have of him, he has
always shown himself to be religious. From the painting on cave walls to designs on bones. That would
show rather that not being religious is rather the exception and does not coincide with how man is
normally.

2. Confusion about love...a dream


This is a brief dream of a man who didn't understand how to love....

A man heading off to work found a beggar by the side of the road. Normally he took no special
interest in those in need but at that moment he felt it would be good to give the man some change left
over after having bought breakfast. When he threw the coins in the cup held out to him he started to
feel pretty good about himself, after all, it wasn’t normal that he was so generous with others.

But only for a second. Suddenly he found the coins thrown back in his face and the beggar stood
up tall and said “Who do you think you are, trying to take advantage of me to make yourself feel good.
You don’t love, me, you don’t care for me, if you really cared, you would ask me why I’m not working,
you would see my shame and try to help me.” The man walked away completely confused. He swore
that he had seen someone previously give money and yet they received no such reaction. The
experience hit him hard. Yet he considered it just something out of the ordinary and continued on his
way.

Later he found one of his friends, and offered to buy him a beer. The man turned and said “If you
were really a friend you wouldn’t look just to please me by buying me something that you know I am
addicted to. For years you have seem me suffer from this, yet because you're afraid lose my friendship,
you continue doing the same thing. Do you really love me as a friend?"

The man went off trying to understand what was happening, It was still too strange to be true. In
the evening he found his girlfriend and invited her out to eat, and found again the shocking message he
had received earlier being horribly repeated by the girl in front of him. She said “I can’t go with you
now, because I see in your eyes that the only reason you want to be with me is for your own measly
pleasure. You really don’t care about me, you just feel good and that is all you care about. When will
you really love me?"

Within this storm of confusion he suddenly found a child in front of him. The child looked very
familiar, and in fact when he looked in the boy’s eyes he saw his own. "My son", he thought, and
immediately he had the desire to give something to the boy. He went and bought a toy and gave it to
him. Then the boy looked at him and said “Dad, why do you keep giving me what I want, can’t you see
that if you really loved me you would give what I most desire which is love, that you teach me how to
love and not how to give into every desire I have. To give me what I want is not how to love me!"

Despair, that is what he felt now, yet the scene changed once again and the man found himself in a
place that he could only call heaven. A few people stood in front of him and one beside him. Instantly
he had the desire to ask his companion, “Who are they?” The other responded “They are the ones who
loved.” "Behold, the woman there, she lay in bed for five years. Suffering from three infirmities at the
same time. Her pain was such that she could not sleep and finally the infirmities overcame her. All
throughout she offered up and accepted the cross received, no one ever saw her, no one knew the
strength of her will nor how tough the battle was. But she was seen by anther who gave her peace for
her fight. She is called the silent warrior of suffering."

The next was a man in a normal suite, very formal, and he asked, “and he, what did he do?” "He
was a businessman, a banker I think, but he was much more, for he is called the secret servant of the
poor. With all the wealth that he had he projected it towards developing systems to give the poor work
and education, the poor never saw him, nor he them, he remained in an office behind closed doors, and
worked, planning, projecting, and encouraging the people who were directly in contact with the
initiatives he was founding. At the end his enemies caused a scandal and he lost everything, but his
work had born fruit and the rest of his life he spent doing small acts of charity to others."

There were others, each story different, but the man began to see a connection, all in some way or
another had given up something, each had given themselves to somebody, each seemed totally happy in
the most horrific circumstances, woman who had given their lives to save their children, people who
had died for the faith, religious who were hidden behind the walls of the monastery, normal people who
had tried to live their faith in a society that only wished to crush them.

Then his companion asked him, “are you as happy as they?” He responded, "No." The other asked,
"Why?" He said "I don’t know." "Yet I do." The stranger said.

He was immediately taken then to the bank of a shore, and there he found two men in
conversation, the first one said, "Do you love me?" The other said, "yes Lord, you know I do." The
other said, "do you really love me?" "I do!" A third time he asked, "Do you really love and will you
love me with all that you are?" The other had a tremendous pain in his eyes that caused the man to
shudder, He said, "Lord you know that I do." "Then FOLLOW ME!"

He asked then his companion, "follow him where?" The other gave him a Crucifix and
disappeared. The man was left alone, staring at the Crucifix, with the words singing in his ear, "follow
me...."

3. What is love?

The word love is so common, repeated so many times, sung on the radio, read in books, expressed
in poetry. But the word love is also found in the Bible and written upon the walls of Churches. The
Pope wrote a while back an Encyclical about love so as to help Catholics and non Catholics alike
understand better what this is because there seems to be a big confusion about it. So what does love
mean to us? What does it mean to you? What is love?

Let's first take a look at the Crucifix in order to get a clue. The greatest symbol of the Catholic
Faith is the Crucifix. Why? Why would a religion which proclaims so much the word life, or eternal
life, or happiness etc. have such a strange symbol to represent it. A dead man, and one that had suffered
horrifically. That is our symbol. Why. Why couldn’t we have something nicer, less hard, less cruel, but
there it is. Its funny, but we see it so many times that we have taken it as one more picture on the wall.
It sits there, just like all the other pictures of saints and family members that we have in our house, in
other words, we forget it, it remains as a cultural relic which has lost almost all meaning. It hangs on
the wall as we hang a coat on a hanger, and many times our faith remains with it, silently forgotten.

We need to take the Crucifix and wipe the dust off it and begin to contemplate again what this
strange symbol wants to tell us.

The icon of love. The crucifix stands as a symbol of one thing, and that alone, Love. Only Love.
No matter what other conception of love someone may have, they all become overshadowed by this
one. No other idea of love comes close to this one, not one of them is so profound, so firm, so eternal.
All other loves are judged by this one. But why? Why couldn’t we have another symbol of love? Love
between spouses, between friends, between brothers, between neighbores, between girlfriend and
boyfriend or even give in to the moderns and have a symbol of love between man and animal like the
greenpeace or even among homosexuals. Why couldn’t we have any other symbol than the one we
have?

What happens when we take the Crucifix completely out of the picture and try to put another
image of love in its place? Sooner or later, spouses get divorced, friends become enemies, brothers
begin to hate each other, neighbors begin to war, boyfriend and girlfriend begin to use the other like a
toy. And note, this is NOT because the Church said so, or because it is written down in some document.
We see it every day, on the street, with the people we know. He who does not understand the love of the
Crucifix will in the end understand no type of love, and even worse will not be able to love. This is not
a story, its not an opinion, its fact and we find it every day. If I deny the Crucifix, I deny love.

So what type of love does the Crucifix show us? It appears to be ugly, but is it? Maybe its ugly to
me because all the songs I hear and the TV I watch, and the movies I see, and the commercials I see all
tell me that the Crucifix is ugly and it’s a lie. But the problem is they never knew what love was being
manifested there.

So what is love? How do I love. I love by imitating Christ. And how did Christ love? He loved by
giving himself completely to others for the good of others, to make them happy. So when can I say I
really love? When I imitate Christ, and what does that consist in?

Christ, came to fulfill a mission given to him by the Father. And how did he fulfill his mission? He
healed the sick, rose the dead, gave sight to the blind, and gave hope to those in sorrow. But most of all
with every act He did he proclaimed one message which everyone wanted to hear, that God loved them,
meaning God wanted to give himself to all to make them happy. When the blind opened their eyes they
saw not only trees, but that God loved them in the depth of their heart. And this manifestation of love
culminated upon the Cross. This is real love. He shouted on the cross for all to hear, “God loves, you,
God seeks you out, God wants you to be truly happy!”

He came in order to look for our good, so that we could realize ourselves, fulfill ourselves, so that
we could be truly completely absolutely happy. And what makes us absolutely happy, is it that we are
healed, or that we get what we want? No, no, no, we are really happy when we are loved!!!! It is above
all else, it is the greatest good that we look for. It is when God loves us, or when he gives himself to us
that we are happy.

Each time I do a good work for somebody I must be saying at the same time, and the other must
perceive it that “you are loved” that is, I love you.

But that is not all. The moment I see that I am loved by God, then my response is to love! Why,
because in this moment I see that if I really want to be perfect, if I want to realize myself, If I want to
be happy, I need to search and follow that which is truly perfect and that is God! God is absolutely
perfect, and I want to be perfect too! Why does one train for hours on end soccer or piano, or anything?
Is it not so they can be the best, the most perfect, and that many times this means seeing and imitating
the professionals who have come before? One sees a professional sports player, and one sees how the
sport should be played in some sense perfectly, and one says I want to be like that. A child sees his
father do something and tries to imitate him because he wants to be perfect like him. When I see that
God loves me I want to imitate him because I know that that is how I will be really happy, truly happy
because I will arrive at the greatest perfection I can possible reach and be truly happy.

So what is love? Love is not a feeling, its not an emotion, its not what I want, not what I desire and
is not directed to any particular person. Love is an act. Love is imitating God in giving to the other
what they most need to be happy, to realize themselves, and no matter what I give here on this earth,
the other must understand that I give it to imitate God, I give it to give myself to them and not for
myself.
So I am happy by loving others, looking for the good of others and in this I imitate Christ.

After we have finished our mission here on earth, God awaits us to give us more intensely the
experience of His love, but this intensity only comes after we have freely chosen to love him before, for
he asks us here on earth, “Do you really wish to love?” And when he has seen our response he invites,
“Then come, now I will completely fulfill your desire to love and to be loved, for now I see that that is
what you truly want and have chosen it freely.”

If I marry, it is to love this person, if I am a friend, it is to do the same, If I have a child, it is for the
same, in all of these cases I must love them as God loves them, not how I want to, for that is not love.

Look at the crucifix and contemplate again how love really is, ask yourself again, “Do I really
understand?”

4. The meaning behind Suffering

In order to fulfill ourselves in love we need to accept sacrifice and the cross in our lives. Without
suffering love remains dead, a shadow, drained of strength and even beauty. The example of the
diamond comes in to play here. Love is beautiful but not soft and comfortable. Suffering strengthens
love and makes it grow putting demands on our freedom to consciously choose to love.

We know that that the cross is the greatest example of love, but now we must ask why when we
love we have to give something up. Why is it that we get sick, lose friends, watch people die, have to
work, have to study. Why does God allow both physical and spiritual suffering? Why does he seem to
take away what is most precious to us. As time goes one this reality becomes harder and harder to bear
until we come to a point to where, or we accept that something good will come out of what we suffer,
or we begin consciously to reject God, stating that if he were so good, why would he allow so much
suffering.

This is a normal thing to ask and it shows something. First that one understands that suffering in
itself is not good. We experience that something is not right, not in order. We remember vaguely, that
when we were young, our parents tried to get rid of all those things that caused us pain, they consoled
us, helped us, gave us all that would make us happy. And was that not correct? Of course it was, they
were trying to love us, they were looking for our good. This is what was ingrained in my mind when I
was young, if I had a good family.

So what happens, I immediately take this image and apply it to God in the state I am in now, but
that I cannot do, and if I would think just a little more, I would find that the image I am trying to apply
is not complete. I forgot something, which we often do. Go back and remember as well that your
parents not only gave you things that felt nice, but also things that didn't.

They took you to the doctor for injections that you didn't like. They gave you vegetables that
maybe you didn't like. They even gave you restrictions or punishments, which you definitely did not
like either. But in all this they were trying to love you by forming you! Now when I am really young, I
accept this, because there is something that tells us when we are very little to trust our parents, for the
simple fact that I don’t know much, and that in other circumstances my parents have been good to me.
But as I grow older, my intellect begins to awaken and learn more, I realize that my parents are not
perfect and the trust I had before begins to disappear. My parents keep asking me to do the same things,
but now, because I don’t see the reason for it, I simply don’t do it, or I do it out of obligation, I live in
their house, so I have to do what they say.

Parents are human and because they want the good of their child they give him or don’t give him
certain things, unfortunately many times they can’t explain why they give what they give, and this is
because sometimes they don’t have the formation to do so.

So not even in normal human relationships do those who love give only what is nice and
pleasurable, but also things that are painful.

Now, the normal inclination of every person is to do what he feels is better, but that does not mean
that it is better. I will give a couple of examples. Let’s say I like to drink beer, but if the doctor told me
that my liver is so damaged that if I drink I will die, so this inclination is not good for me. Let us say as
well I want to be a banker, well, that means I must study administration, if I think that is boring and
follow my natural inclinations not to study, then I will never be a banker, never have money, and will
be working at the gas station.

This may seem very clear, but the reality is that many, many times we are so stupid that we don’t
see or don’t want to see the consequences of what we choose, because we just want what feels better.
Living like that we live like animals, who many times kill themselves by the very fact they follow their
instincts. Just think of how many animals get killed on the roadway because their instincts tell them not
to move when they see a light. If they could just think for two seconds they would have continued on
without much trouble. The difference then between man and animal is clear, and even though man was
also given natural inclinations, he was also given an intellect to override them if the necessity arose.

So following my inclinations should not be my goal, but rather control them, and this means, that I
need to suffer!!!! Or I suffer, or I die, there is no other way, and here we are only giving physical
examples, but the same can be applied to the spiritual life, but before we see this, we have to clarify
what suffering is.

Suffering is not pain. Pain is what we have when our nervous system reacts to something bad to
the body. Pain can be very intense, but no matter how intense it is, that is not suffering. I can cut your
arm off, and you will have a lot of pain, you will cry, shout, faint because of the pain, but that is not
suffering. Animals when they get hurt, they have pain, but they do not suffer. Suffering goes beyond the
physical realm. It is in one sense a “spiritual pain” When I “suffer” I am experiencing something I
don’t understand, that I cannot control, that I despise or hate, that I reject with my whole being. It gives
me the sense of tremendous weakness, of senselessness. It makes me feel limited, useless. Pain is not
suffering, but it can cause it.

When I study, I suffer, but I don’t experience pain. When someone dies, I suffer, but I don’t have
pain. There are moments where the suffering is so intense that it affects me physically, but it is because
of the suffering itself and not the thing causing the suffering that does this to someone. Take for
example Christ when he sweat blood in the garden.

So now we know what suffering is, buy why do we suffer?

Why didn’t God just make us in heaven from the beginning so that I could love him and not have
to suffer. But I only say that when I don’t understand what freedom is and how it works. In order to be
free, God can’t impose, he does not shout, or jump out and say, “here I am”. I, and only I can make the
decision to love. And that decision has to be put to the test in order that the decision I make is fully
free. So how does suffering help us in this?

There are three reasons. First, suffering strengthens our desire for the good and makes firmer the
decision for it. Like a man who has worked for ten years for a Ferrari will want it more than one who
won it in a lottery. This is the purification I need to choose the good, NOT because I like it, not because
it pleases me, not because someone told me, not because of any other reason except that this is really
objectively, truly good for me. Another example could be when I practice an instrument, I know that if
I dedicate time to it, even though I may suffer a little, it will bear fruit and I will be able to play as I
have seen others do. Suffering and not God comes and slaps me in the face and asks, is this what you
really want?

Second, suffering confirms that only God can make me happy. Because when it comes to God, I
have nothing physical to confirm that all the sacrifice and suffering I go through for him will indeed
pay off, there is no experience to confirm what I will gain, I only know it by my conscience. The
example of a loved one on a long trip will help us understand. While he is here, I don’t think too much
on his presence, but suddenly, when he is gone, I suffer, why, because now I realize how much I really
loved that person. The suffering confirms that that person was really important to me. The same with
God. If I suffer at all its because I am missing something, I want complete happiness, security, peace,
but that I will not get until I am united to the person who will make me truly happy.

Finally, suffering not only confirms that God will make me happy, but that I am not God!

Suffering is the strongest reminder that we are not God. Only God has control over everything, and
suffering, when it makes me feel helpless reminds me that I am only a creature and can't have complete
control or give myself happiness. Suffering says, "You are not God, look, look beyond." Suffering
becomes God’s messenger and hails the true path, and all of this, in order that I may be free to choose
without any influence from God or the world. My decision is free, completely free, and suffering
guarantees that.

With this we can look once again at the Crucifix, now I can understand better the example given. I
see someone who is suffering, and in this I see one who loves, It is the greatest example to us of how
we should accept suffering, and the fruit that comes with it. Christ after death was glorified, and we
shall be too, for having accepted suffering and chosen to love.

Love by suffering becomes strong, and withstands the many confusions and obstacles that present
themselves in our life. Love by suffering becomes like a diamond. Coal after thousands of years, by
extreme pressure and heat becomes what we find, a diamond, but remember where it came from, black,
dirty coal, love is transformed by suffering from being black and empty, which is a symbol of when I
love myself alone, to one of the most beautiful things we find on this earth. A diamond is hard, strong,
after what it has gone through, it withstands everything. But this hardness takes nothing away from its
beauty. It is because it is hard that it is beautiful. Not only that, but its beauty consists in throwing light
in all directions. And that is exactly what happens to love purified by suffering, it throws in all
directions the love of God to all around him.

Love without suffering is but a shadow, it is empty, it gives nothing. If you give the suffering back
to God, immediately God uses your example of love not only to affect those who see you, but also
those who don’t.
5. St. Paul's world

This blog is in the process of being finished, but I wanted to let everyone take advantage of what
was already done to give critique. Thanks

Ok everyone, here is a "brief" explanation on the problem of "faith and works". So lets get started.
Some of the apparently conflicting passages from St. Paul are: Romans 2:6-10 6 Who will render to
every man according to his works: 7 To them who through perseverance in good works seek for glory
and honour and immortality, 8 But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey
unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, 9 Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth
evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; 10 But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that
worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile:...

Romans 2:13 For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be
justified.

Yet then he apparently goes against this when he says: Romans 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the
law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Romans 3:28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

But then he will mention the following: Romans 6:15 What then? shall we sin, because we are not
under the law, but under grace? Of course not!

And then again go back to faith: Romans 10: 9-10 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the
Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
10 For with the heart man believeth and so is justified; and with the mouth confession is made and so
one is saved.

But finally he ends up with works: Romans 12:20-21 Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if
he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. 21 Be not overcome
of evil, but overcome evil with good.

So how do we show that St. Paul is not going crazy here? What is the real problem? Let's start with
what we know. Faith alone goes against our human nature. Why? Because by our nature we are made
to show what we decide or think with acts. If we were just spiritual then it would be different, but we
are spiritual and physical and so what we decide or think mentally will have some sort of physical
counterpart or connection or reaction. Otherwise there would be a rift, or separation that would render
everything around us absurd. Examples: I say "I love you" to my girlfriend/boyfriend and give them a
rose that is totally withered. One sells a fake diamond and states that its a real one.

In normal talk we call this a lie. We say something, but we do another. For fundamentalists though
they think somehow that God, who made us to coincide what we think and say with what we do on a
daily basis, would twist us, manipulate our nature, and allow somebody to say "I believe that Jesus
redeemed me and nothing will separate me from him" and that somehow will render null and void any
other act I do, whether it be bad or good, before God's eyes. In other words, instead of real forgiveness
from God, what God does is "pretend" my bad action never really happened. Sort of like if the
girlfriend/boyfriend who received the withered rose "pretended" it was still alive and beautiful.

You're right, it doesn't make sense, but then again neither does committing a sin and convincing
ourselves that's its OK, in that moment we fall into the same trap as the fundamentalist, we warp reality
and change it to how we want it, not how it is. So we shouldn't be too hard on them.

OK lets go to the next part, why works or acts are not enough. We know we need acts, but are they
enough to get me to heaven? No. Why? Because heaven is a GIFT and you can't earn a gift!!!! A person
does not give you a gift on your birthday because you earned it somehow. A gift manifests love and
love is not measured by quantity or greatness. In other words its not like I go to heaven and say to God,
"Hey, I went to Mass every Sunday, never killed, stole or jumped in bed with somebody, and gave to
the poor, so I deserve to be let in here!" Nope It doesn't work like that. A gift is not merited or earned.

Lets see again the example of marriage. In marriage each promises in love to remain with the
other, but that promise to the other is a gift. I promise to you the gift of myself for as long as we live.
That does not mean you "deserve" my love now, no, I give it and the relationship will last as long as I
decide to give my love to you, and it does not matter what you do, or how much you do it that will
"make" me stay with you. At any moment I can just "up and go" (obviously this would be bad, but this
is just for the sake of the argument) and you can't tell me "Hey, I gave you all my time, loved you in
return, did all these things for you so...you can't go!" Nope, I can go and nothing can stop me cause you
can't merit or "deserve" my love or gift of self.

In Heaven God gives us Himself as a gift, and we don't "deserve" it, especially for what we have
done in the past because of our sins. So we know now that 1. we need acts to show love, 2. acts by
themselves don't force God to love us or let us into heaven so now we need the third element-faith-and
how acts are related to it.

We need faith as St. Paul says because without it our acts aim for nothing. So what is faith? It's
simply me affirming that God loves me! More particularly, that this Triune God, particularly Christ,
redeemed us or justified us-meaning in essence that he FORGAVE us for all we have done to him.
Unlike the fudamentalists, we know that God is not blind and that he takes very seriously what we do
to him, but beyond that He loves us and showed us that by redeeming us. By believing I assert, even
though I can't prove it, that God really does love me, has forgiven me, made me new, and wants to
share His life with me for all eternity!

So going back to the marriage example, God gives me his love, and I say "I do" or in other words
"I believe!" and to SHOW that I do I will wear the "ring" of acts or works that manifest to everyone
that I really do believe. The ring or acts (works) shows then that I have received, accepted, and want to
respond to God's love, NOT that I am trying to "merit" or "deserve" his love. Faith becomes then the
arrow that directs me to the path where I will "walk" (=acts and works) to get to God, its the foundation
of the building I will build with my acts and works that will only be as firm and as solid as the
foundation upon which it stands (see the passage about building on sand or rock) its the driving force
that allow me to persevere in suffering, persecution, or trial. It is the step over the abyss of human
uncertainty. It is this "justification" that Paul speaks of because it accepts and asserts that God forgave
us, opening us to his grace to take the next step towards him. But we must remember that even for this
act of faith I need God's grace, meaning that faith too is a gift from God, and by my acts I solidify that
"work" begun in me by God.

In other words, finishing off with marriage again, the "I believe" and "I love you" (which is my
response to faith -I believe therefore I will love) I say now to God will grow richer with my acts and
will mean something slightly different in the future, just like in marriage, when a person says "I love
you" to their spouse it's richer after 50 years of marriage than it was in the beginning, until finally Faith
will be transformed totally into love when I enter heaven cause I will not believe but know then that
God really did love and forgive me.

Faith then, is, in a sense, the first act of love, it is the first "response" I give to God's love, it is in
one sense the first "work" that I do combined with God's grace which allows me to do it. Faith then
becomes my "training wheels" for my bike of love which I absolutely need at the beginning to "get
going" but afterwards, in heaven I can take off and ride like the wind.

6. The Mystery of the Mormons

A common question put to me oft enough is how one is supposed to discern which religion is true.
Well oft enough I give them the answer I always give: whichever is the most commonsensical-
obviously.

O.K. well maybe not so obvious to some but that's why I write :).

Some people will rephrase this and say that a religion has to "fit the bill" for it to be followed. I've
got nothing against that, it's a rather sound principle I would say.

So some would say that the Catholic religion is bogus cause it doesn't accept contraception. Well,
if one uses his/her head, one does not accept contraception on terms of religion but on terms of it being
simply commonsensical not to, if you don't want a child, you don't jump in bed.

"But I want..." Yea, you want your cake and eat it too? What is the sense of messing up your body
for pleasure, or making it do something it wasn't meant to do, or taking a risk? Who made you God?
"But I wanna have my pleasure :(....." What does that have to do with whether the Catholic religion is
true or not?

No, we have to use our heads and NOT our feelings or desires when dealing with this question. To
see if a religion is true or not I want to see if it respects my human nature, I want to see if it's coherent
in reality, I want to know if it, well, makes sense.....

So I'm not looking to be dogmatic here, nor to frustrate, nor to cause friction, I'm going to ask
questions. And I ask not in the sense of trying to make a statement of "you see how totally false this is"
but rather of earnestness in wanting to know the truth. God didn't give us an intelligence just for
practical purposes alone, just so I could tie my shoes and blindly believe in something, but also to
understand, to delve into reality, and not be afraid of what I would find, even if it means turning my
world upside down. Religion and faith are a part of reality, and so not only can be looked at but should
be looked at without fear, because truth, if sincerely looked for will be found.

So I have a lot of questions, but its simply because I desire to see truth a lot, and even though this
may show how complicated the proposition is of being a Mormon, yet I offer it as a spurring on to
truth, which I hope will be seen in relation to this in the future.

We'll begin with a brief history intermingled with commentary, then continue on with a few
philosophical questions about fundamental beliefs and then move on to the book of Mormon.

Beware, this blog will be LONG so I would suggest reading it in two sittings, or make sure you
have something to nibble on cause you're going to need it. Take note, this is only a first draft! I will be
in dialog with the Mormons over the next month and this will be updated accordingly.

The Mormons were founded by Joseph Smith, Jr.-born December 23, 1805 and shot dead on June
27, 1844. A rather brief life but in some sense fruitful seeing as his followers number about 14 million
worldwide today.

At age 14 in 1820 he saw his first "vision" supposedly of Christ telling him that all religion up to
this point had gone astray and, well, he was chosen to start yet another reformation. (How many
reformations do we really need to find the truth before the end of the world? Is this not what many
other protestant groups will claim as well? What, may I ask, went so wrong anyway that we needed
such a reformation? I'm asking this in a sincere way and not being sarcastic, I really want to know what
happened.) In 1823 he supposedly found certain "plates" with the help of a prophet-made-quasi-angel
Moroni in 1823, along with two stones which were to be used to help him "translate" what he called
"reformed Egyptian" something which does not nor has not existed in any shape or form outside this
story. Moreover the angel didn't let Joseph take anything for 4 years cause he wasn't "ready" for his
mission to translate them. Then finally in 1827 (married in this year too) he took everything and started
his "work of translation". In 1830 he finished and founded Mormonism.

Joseph couldn't show anybody these plates except for a few. Why? Cause he was afraid that
someone was going to take them? That someone would try and misinterpret them? Why written in
"reformed Egyption" -a language that never existed? The question is this, why even worry about having
them in another language outside Hebrew (cause Jews had written it supposedly) if they were going to
be hidden and no one was going to find them until Joseph and Joseph wasn't going to show them to
anyone anyway? Any body of people could have come in to take them if they really wanted, so why the
secrecy? There is nothing in the book of Mormon that's in any way special or "radical" (apocalyptic
prophesy etc.) so what would be the reason for this?

Then, why need two stones to do it? Why couldn't he have just received teaching from the Angel
how to translate them, or some sort of guide? Why stones? Why something so out of place? I have to
say the burning bush of Moses is a bit extravagant, and Christ did use mud once to open a blind man's
eyes, but wouldn't this appear a little out of bounds?....

To add a bit of a spin on this, these stones happen to be similar to or the same as the ones Joseph
used to try and "find hidden treasure" in 1825. Why the apparent connection?

Now one of Joseph's coworkers Martin Harris took some of the "letters" of the "Reformed
Egyptian" after a time to Charles Anthon in 1834, a scholar, who knew something of languages who
basically stated that they had nothing to do with... nothing = hoax (what Anthon concluded not me),- a
mixture of elements from a couple of languages but modified, (letters written upside down etc.) This
may not be what the Mormons will say he said but Anthon is quoted saying the just mentioned.
Afterwards Harris lost a bit of the translation that Joseph had done and Joseph got "punished" by
having the plates taken from him. Why the punishment if Joseph was not the one to lose it? Shouldn't
he have cut Martin Harris off from having any connection to this for this error, yet nothing is done.

A while afterwards when the angel saw that Joseph was "good" again he let him have the plates
and continue on with his work until 1830. At this time 11 people got to see the plates. (Why 11 people
when he could have shown more?)This all took place in New York.

So after a bit Joseph receives a vision that tells him that he's gotta move west to Missouri (he was
having a few problems in New York anyway with some groups there), but first ends up in Kirtland
Ohio.

As he gets things going there, and building up a temple, the locals don't like it too much and try to
kill him, (this a point that I still have to see about cause one would think that freedom of expression and
religion would have prevented this, so was their some sort of aggression or friction put into play
somewhere?) but didn't quite finish the job, so after this the next thing Joseph does is to...start a bank,
on account of the debt Joseph had at this time trying to build a temple. But unfortunately this utterly
failed and after having civil suits layed against him and a warrant for his arrest on bank fraud creeping
up behind he decided it was time to move on to Independence Missouri, and they starting building
another temple, but Joseph was told that really it was in Jackson County that the "promised land" of the
Mormons would be. Well, in general Missouri was going to be the "New Jerusalem".

Here I would like also to question: but why a specific place for a "New Jerusalem"? Since when
did God have favoritisms in relation to place? What does a place have to do with redemption or our
salvation? What would it give us? What would it add? Why would being in Missouri be different than
being in any other part of the world? Is God going to try and put millions all in Missouri at the end of
time? What has America got to do with anything? Why not the North Pole? Since when does God
worry about a certain piece of land? What about the Gospel passage in John where he says "Believe
me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in
Jerusalem." (John 4:21)

Unfortunately this didn't work out either and because the Missiouri state government thought them
a bit dangerous, after a few quarrels with state militia ending with Joseph being in jail a few months
they "escaped" and went to Commerce Illinois in 1839 which they renamed "Nauvoo" and Joseph
ended up being mayor there. In 1841 they started work on the biggest temple they were to build up to
that time. In 1842 he became a Free Mason - a group that pretty much promotes Deism which basically
states that God makes the earth and then lets it go like winding up a clock and letting it tick - having no
personal relationship with what he's created. We'll suppose that was for political purposes seeing as
Joseph also proposed himself candidate for president of the US shortly after.

Then unfortunately in 1844 some Mormons started a paper that attacked Joseph and Joseph wasn't
to keen on this and decided to do away with it. That went against freedom of the press which landed
him in jail again, but this time there wasn't going to be any escaping. Few days later comes a 200 unit
mob and, enters the jail, and fills him with lead. End of Joseph Smith Jr. but the Mormons
continue....but in other places, cause after they finished this temple in Nauvoo in 1846 most of the town
is left deserted.

The Mormons will admit to most of this and will at the same time admit he was a man, and as a
man committed errors, but that God can use even those who commit errors to do his will. This principle
is very true actually, St. Peter was also a man who committed errors. But again I am obliged to
comment the following, in the case of St. Peter and others similar to him, there was also a clear act of
repentance that gave example to others that he admitted his error, but its very hard to see how Joseph
followed suit with this. It's a point I don't want to push we have no right to judge anyone but I just
mention that its very hard for someone to follow another if coherence in life is lacking.
Thus we have gone over a bit of history and some complications with it. What now comes will be a
bit harder to follow, so if it gets too complicated for you, you can skip to the part about the Book of
Mormon.

Let's now look at some fundamental problems with doctrine. Note that most of this does not come
from the Book of Mormon itself but other documents that Joseph wrote afterwards, such as the "Pearl
of great Price" etc.

We'll begin with the understanding of how God is and his relationship to creation. For the
Mormons God the Father is supposedly creator of everything. At least that is what I was told by them,
so the idea that God the Father came from another group of god's seems not to be the case as some
videos on Youtube would suggest.

They consider him infinite and all powerful yet both of these terms are a bit vague to them and I
will explain why in a moment. Christ on the other hand is a god but not like the Father. Yes he is "all
powerful" but not like the Father either. Rather Christ is more like a special god, having received the
name "son" of the the Father, but in essence is no different in nature to other gods like the devil, who is
also a god just a bit less "powerful" so to speak.

Really so to speak, the Mormons have, and this is what makes writing about them sometimes so
complicated and so hard to speak of in an objective manner, the big problem of not being able to
specify or explain in detail much of their fundamental doctrines, which I think that some will agree
with. What I have just mentioned above is in itself not really how they would put it, simply because
they wouldn't put it in any way. Many times they will just leave it as is, basically without trying to
understand it or figure it out. There is many times no delving into the faith to see its coherence, no
trying to understand but rather letting it almost completely in the arms of faith. The problem? Faith
separated from reason- even though they may not do it on a conscious or theoretical level, leaves a
practical separation that could state that it's not reason's realm to penetrate faith. Big problem with
someone who wants clarity.

Thus redemption was not carried out by God creator of the universe but by a god that "helped
create" the universe but is still limited. Here we have a big problem which is not only philosophical but
theological, can a god, not being the absolute creator who gave us life and existence redeem us? Is it
enough?

Well, in a sense, with their scheme, yes. Why, because of how they see their "Creator".

The Father is not really a "Creator" but rather a "maker" You see, the physical world was NOT
created from nothing, but rather out of what, in philosophical terminology, would be called unformed
or "prime" matter. They Actually end up following a very Aristotelian base which says that matter is
eternal and not created.

This poses a big problem as well. To create really means, and does mean in relation to God, that
something "is brought into existence" that means brought from nothing into something. So the Father
for them is just a maker. Unfortunately philosophically speaking this doesn't work for the following
(get ready for philosophical jargon, if you don't like it, just skip it):

God must be creator, and that means he brings ALL from NOTHING to SOMETHING. How do
we know this?
1. We see that everything around us is moving from one perfection to another, or trying to gain
perfection. Ex. kid practicing piano, tiger hunting to live, man learning, caterpillar changing into
butterfly, oxygen and hydrogen becoming water, a rock falling to be at rest. All these things search to
be something different, something more. What does this mean? That they are IMPERFECT and striving
to be PERFECT. Everything around us is in the same flux, searching for the same thing: perfection.

2. We also know that these things can't "get to where they are aiming for" without "help", and that
there must be something that has that perfection in some way already in order that something else get
it. In other words something can't give to another thing what it doesn't have by itself and something
imperfect can't get perfect by itself or it would already have that perfection in some way and thus
wouldn't need anything else to become perfect. Ex. kid needs a teacher to learn piano, rock needs
gravity to rest etc. Caterpillar got genes from its parents to be able to transform itself into butterfly etc.
Yes it's hard to see how this principle works in other examples but it's there. To give a more general
example, a bottle can't move itself from one end of the table to the other without the help of my hand
which can go to both places.

3. Well now we have to blow this picture up a bit more A LOT more. EVERY thing that is, is
looking for perfections so there must be something that has all these perfections in some vague way,
something that can "move" everything to perfection. If this is so then that thing must be absolutely
PERFECT and lacking NOTHING.

4. Well, there is one more thing that things can have but they can't give themselves and that is
simply to exist!! You didn't have that beforehand to give yourself and its something you can have! Well
matter (the stuff physical things are made of) is the same way. Matter is NOT absolutely perfect, in fact
its always changing! Therefore it had to have been created or given existence along with everything
else!

If you got lost somewhere don't worry, this will be a bit new to many, just let it sit and come back
later if you want.

Either way this is simply cold logic, founded on commonsensical principles. Something my mind
can do because it was given the capacity by God to do so. Thus to say that matter is coeternal with
God, or that God did not make it simply can't work, and trying to make it an article of faith in one sense
would be confusing to the intelligence which God also gave us. Faith does not go against the
intelligence, yes it can go beyond it, but not against it. The Catholic notion of the Trinity goes beyond
what the intelligence can prove or completely clarify, but it does not go against it, it's called a paradox,
which is not something I will get into here. Simply put, the persons of the Trinity manifest God's
nature, we are NOT talking about 3 separate persons as our mind would like us to think them as. They
are completely united in God. To take an example its like the three parts in a maple tree leaf, it has
three major "parts" but it's one leaf, our mind divides them, but they are one in reality. So yes it is
complicated, but NOT against reason.

God is creator, bringing things out of nothing, so the possibility of matter not having been created
cannot be, unless we want to end up in incoherences.

So... we'll continue on cause if I try to show now what the relationship of Christ is to man in
Mormon theology, this will get very complicated and turn into a book, which is not the goal here, but I
guess may end up being the case, cause there is still much more....
Just keep in mind that for a Catholic, we understand God to be absolutely infinite in every way and
thus when we offend an infinite being, the recompense must be infinite, and unfortunately we don't
have the power to bridge that gap or do an action that has infinite capacity to fix the problem, thus it
must be God, and him alone who can "redeem" or remake the "bridge" between man, who is finite and
God who is infinite. Christ then must be God equally as the Father is God for him to bridge the gap
made by man's sin, aka, he must be absolutely infinite and all powerful.

OK one other big problem. Human freedom. In essence because of the following our freedom is
directly affected by God and thus not allowing us to be completely free. Why?

The Mormons believe that we are created before we enter this world and exist in a spirit type of
form (all of this is problematic but I won't spend time on it), and in theory we all "chose" to enter earth,
or more importantly to gain a body (first and formost because the Father has a body as well, and so to
become like him we need to pass through this first step) and through it to test our desire to be with God.
They will consider this as, in one sense, becoming more free cause I have to search for God now and
not know him as I did before I came to earth. First problem, why come to earth in the first place? Why
is having a body so important, because the Father has a body too, and because we want to be like him
we need to be "born" to get it? What do I gain by having one if I didn't need one before? Why again
does the Father have one? What does he need one for? None of this follows as far as can be seen and
goes rather roughly against the intellectual grain. This brings up a whole lot of other problems. It
makes sense that Christ has a body cause he redeemed man completely, body and soul, but why the
Father? What is the gain? A body is something extra and makes a creature more complex than one that
is completely simple and spiritual, which is better. To top it off St. Paul says: 2 Cor. 5: 8 Yet we are
courageous, and we would rather leave the body and go home to the Lord.

Going back to the main problem, so we spirits are born with a body, but we have, on a practical
level, NO connection or recollection to our past decisions. What then was the sense of it all
beforehand? What did it give us? If we were good before and bad here, then what was the sense of
getting a body in the first place if we are to be condemned? (For there is a hell for them.) What was the
sense in it all?

To strip me of all decisions and actions which made me what I was only to start over is, what we
consider, disordered, its the classic case scenario when somebody good bumps their head and doesn't
remember anything and has to start over and maybe ending up bad cause he can't remember who or
how he was. We consider that totally unnerving, unnatural, sad, tragic, we consider the person, in some
sense, even though he may be fully conscious, a handicap because he lost something very essential to
his way of life, who he was.

How then can one be justified in saying that this would be something looked for or natural? How
can we say that our freedom, which allows us to become what we become, is so secondary as to be
"reformatted" just to receive a body and see if we are worthy of heaven as an afterthought. Well, isn't
the reason we had freedom in the first place given to us was so that we could decide for God? Does it
make sense to decide then to forget who I am or what I have done if I have worked so hard to arrive at
what I am now?

We must take into consideration as well that when Christ became man and developed he DID have
consciousness of who he was, and knew exactly what he was, why he was there, etc. There was no
"memory erasing" for him. So why don't we if this were really the case for us?
There are other problems like these found in their doctrine, but I won't go in detail on any more. I
will mention though that they do believe that when all is set and done I will have a planet to myself as a
God for...? Why I would want to have a planet and not be before God is difficult to grasp. It certainly is
not what I want when I die. I've personally had enough of planets with this one I've been on. How
could having a planet make me completely happy, if I'm not happy with anything here on this earth?
Would we be "programed" to be happy this way? A planet is a finite thing, but I want to partake of the
infinite and that is why I'm never fully happy here, cause all around me are finite things which never
really fill me. My whole being wants to be with God and nothing else. Why then be given something I
need not nor want not?

Keep in mind as well that the difference between a "god" and an "angel" is very vague for them.
They had a very difficult time trying to explain it to me. It's not something they worry about. I still do
not know therefore how each is really or what their natures consist in. I'll have to wait till I speak to
one of their scholars.

The polygamy question is also common but not very important seeing as in 1890 they threw that
out, except for a small body of them who hung onto it. Joseph it appears may have practiced it a little in
the dark but it wasn't formal enough to get him in too much trouble. Either way it very clearly says in
the book of Mormon that polygamy is a no no. (Jacob 2: 24 - Behold David and Solomon had many
wives and concubines, which thing was abominable to me, Saith the Lord. Jacob 2: 27 ...For there shall
not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none.) Yet Joseph goes
against that in "Doctrine and Covenants" when he says: 61 And again, as pertaining to the law of the
priesthood if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent,
and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified;
he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit adultery with that that
belongeth unto him and to no one else. 62 And if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he
cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore is he justified.

Now they have told me that there is a passage near here that states "unless God commands it".
Could someone send this to me? The suggestion they make to this is God grants the gift of charity to
each woman and to the man so that the marriage itself works, which on a theological level again is just
fine.

There is still a slight problem with this topic though seeing as there is some strong connection with
marriage and the afterlife for them, so let's quickly look at that.

In Matthew 22:30 it says "At the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are
like the angels in heaven." Now it doesn't say that neither are they married simply but for this he say
they are "like the angels" which are in theory not married. Now for Mormons we are like angels
afterwards so this doesn't quite work either for them. So these "angels" maybe could be "married" yet
does this work? What is the goal of the afterlife? Then we have the problem of Paul and what he says: 1
Cor. 7: 8 Now to the unmarried and to the widow I say: it is a good thing for them to remain as they
are, as I do. And then: 1 Cor. 7: 27 Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek a separation. Are you free of a
wife? Then do not look for a wife. And then he says: 1 Cor. 7: 29 I tell you, brothers, the time is
running out. From now on, let those having wives act as not having them. And then: 1 Cor. 7: 33-34
But a married man is anxious about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and he is
divided. And then finally: 1 Cor. 8: 38 So then, the one who marries his virgin does well; the one who
does not marry her will do better. And if we want to add a bit about being on a planet with a wife Paul
says: 1 Thes. 5: Thus we shall always be with the Lord.

So the main problem is this, and the one that St. Paul is insinuating, our greatest desire within our
being is to imitate God, and there are some things that imitate God more than others. Helping him give
life to other creatures is imitating his creative power, yes, but this is unfortunately physical for us, that
is we don't partake very directly in this act of giving life to another human being. Yet even under that
there is a something more that man wants to imitate and that is how God loves. The reason why we
come together in the first place to procreate is because I love my spouse, otherwise it wouldn't happen.
And love wants to unify. As such, I want to be totally united to he who loves me most, and to love him
in return. Marriage is only a brief shallow image of this deep powerful unity in love that I always
search for.

Not only that but but I want to imitate God's universal love, meaning a love that shares no
particularity. No matter how we try to avoid the problem, in marriage I am giving myself in a particular
way, or loving in a particular way my spouse. Yet this is not universal, it is not the way God loves. So
he who lives a celibate lifestyle here and how we really are afterwards is an expression of how God
loves. And because afterwards, when I am with God, I will love everyone in a universal way with no
particularity, and that will satisfy me more than continuing to procreate or be with one human being
forever. Before all creatures comes God, and he made us for him, why then would I want something
outside of him after death?

And on the flip side of the coin we want to be with one woman in marriage because we desire to be
loved completely by the most important person in our lives and to love completely one person in return.
What does this imitate? My relationship with God in the afterlife as well, because not only do I want to
imitate God's universal love but this is so because of how God loves me intensely in a particular way-
infinitely (which is why it can be "particular" and "universal" at the same time because there is no limit
to it in either case) and God then becomes first for me, the most important, total, exclusive, the greatest.
And by means of this love I am able to love everyone else in a universal manner in order to imitate the
one I most love God, in how he loves all equally. Again, if you got lost, don't worry, its a bit
complicated to say the least.

We also need to keep in mind the example of the saints, which the Mormons have none of, their
surrender in celibacy changed the world, (Mother Theresa of Calcutta, Pope JP II etc.) History testifies
that those who have given themselves universally have done more for humanity that those who have
not. Man wants to have icons of what is to come and those icons work wonders in the world for they
are following more closely God's love and nature.

O.K. enough of the tough stuff, let's get to the book of Mormon.

Well, OK one word about the Gospels first.

The Mormons do believe that the Gospels are inspired, at least in general the books in the KJV
which is protestant of course. Yet this is problematic as well, for the simple fact that if what they call
the Great Apostasy (basically states that everyone went into error and lost the path to life) started soon
after Christ's Assention and the Mormons don't accept any of the Synods or Councils, how is it they
accept the Council of Hippo in 397 that approved the very books that they read today in the OT and
NT? Our (and their) Bible would not even have been universal if it weren't for that Council. Why this
one exception? Is it just that the HS just decided in that one moment to bring everyone back from being
Apostates or Heretics (however they would call them) and then let them go again? Why accept Catholic
doctrine there and not other places in or around that time in history?

But makes no difference, it will only help us in the end clarify more points for them having
accepted it.

The Book of Mormon consists basically of about 14 prophets giving their eyewitness accounts of
two principle types of events. One, the Jews coming over twice from a particular eastern continent to
America - once around the year 2000bc and the other around the year 600bc. And two, of constant
battles between tribes which were built up after a certain number of years.

The trips to America themselves are narrated in very little detail. The formation of tribes and
battles between them is what most of the Book consists in. Each story is basically the same: one tribe is
trying to be faithful to God (=following ten commandments and other minor Jewish details) and the
other is unfaithful. The unfaithful one attacks the faithful one, and always looses because the faithful
one is rewarded by having been faithful to God. This almost always the scenario and it gets very
repetitive after a while. Mixed in you have, ever so briefly, prophesies about Christ dying for everyone
and coming or appearing in America after his Resurrection. There is literally nothing else.

There is only one book that breaks this rhythm and that is the one which recounts when Christ
actually came and appeared in America to these American Jews. He first gives a quick summary of all
that you find in the four Gospels (basically repeating them, without all the stories, I'm going to guess
these Jews were smarter than the others cause they needed no parables to understand anything), and
then goes and changes ever so slightly the last supper discourse so as not to be the same as in the
Gospels. Then he finishes off with nothing in relation to the gospels about how the New Jerusalem
would be there in America and he would gather all in one place etc.

Here we still have the problem of favoritisms, why these Jews or Jews in general? Why special
treatment? But beyond that we have the following:

There is almost nothing that would be considered in the 530 pages of this book as something
essential to salvation that was not already given in the OT or NT already. So the big WHY is WHY is
this book so important? There is practically no new revelations or dogmas or commandments in any
part of this book so why the importance? The only two things that even remotely come close to being
an addition is the variation of the Last Supper (which obviously goes against the NT and thus one of
the books is wrong, I care not to guess which one...) and the fact of America all of the sudden being
special along with its inhabitants. Outside of this? Nothing. What did I gain from reading? The idea that
I was reading a repetition of what I have already read and loved in the OT and NT, and that I had no
idea why this book was so special. Something I hope to find out in the near future with more dialogs
with them.

Yet I read the whole thing and so we should now go and see just a bit of what was found (I won't
be able to give them all, they're just to many)....

I Nephi 18:25 "And it came to pass that we did find upon the land of promise, as we journeyed in
the wilderness, that there were beasts in the forests of every kind, both cow and the ox, and the ass and
the horse..." Horses were brought over by Europeans when they first historically came to America, I
don't see how they got there beforehand.

2 Nephi 2:23 And they would have had no children, wherefore they would have remained in a state
of innocence, having no joy, for they know no misery, doing no good, for they knew no sin".... Big
philosophical and theological problem here. How you can conclude that Adam and Eve weren't going
to have children, given that they were made bodily for this, is way beyond me, and how can you say
that there was no joy without misery is also very complicated. Are we to conclude that we have no joy
in Heaven cause there is no misery? Yet where I suppose they are going with this is that we may
register joy more intensely after the sting of pain, which is true, but that is a far cry from not having it
at all because I never knew pain. Knowing what misery is has nothing to do with it. Joy comes from
being united to what is perfect, God, and becoming perfect. It has nothing to do with misery directly.
Misery only intensifies joy indirectly because of its radical opposition, and allows us to more freely
choose what will make us happy, yet all of this would take me a lot more to explain and I'd rather
dedicate another blog to it instead of making this one longer....

2 Nephi 5:21 "And he had caused the cursing to come upon them (Lamanites), yea, even a sore
cursing, because of their iniquity,. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had
become like unto a flint: wherefore as they were white and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they
might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them."
Problem again. If this were said in maybe the year 1010 when no blacks were around it would be
different, but given this was published in the middle of an extreme black hating era, the apparent
coincidence singes the imagination.

2 Nephi 5:23 "And cursed shall be the seed of him that mixeth with their seed for they shall be
cursed even with the same cursing. And the Lord spake it, and it was done." This just follows the
former.

Alma 11:39 "And Amulek said unto him: Yea he (Christ) is th very Eternal Father of heaven and of
earth"...Why they have something like this said here and yet in the end Christ is not really the Father
cause he was "made" is hard to understand. There is a lot of this in their doctrine where they will take a
word or phrase and mean something difference to what the word or phrase means in itself. This also
makes it very hard to say things objectively about something.

Alma 41:5 "For behold, if Adam had put forth his hand immediately and partaken of the tree of
life, he would have lived forever, according to the word of God, having no space for repentance; yea,
and also the word of God would have been void, and the great plan of salvation would have been
frustrated." It's sufficient enough to mention that apparently the Mormons think that there was a tree of
life besides the tree of good and evil that really is a tree that gives unending life it appears, which
before the fall is what...they already had, so why make a tree for something they had already before the
fall? This is something that will have to be clarified later.

3 Nephi 9:3 "Behold that great city Zarahemla have I burned with fire, and the inhabitants thereof."
This is one of many, many paragraph where supposedly Christ, not God the Father, is speaking of how
he is destroying peoples in America, after his Resurrection, before he presents himself bodily to the
Jewish Americans, so as to "purify the group" so to speak. Wasn't Christ to come and show mercy?
Didn't he die for others not to destroy them afterwards? What type of image of Christ is this? NOTE the
most important commandment, that of charity, is never mentioned in the Book of Mormon. I just
consider this awkward at best.

3 Nephi 11:27 ...."for behold, verily I say unto you, that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy
Ghost are one." Em, not really, not existentially at least, not in power, so why say it this way? Why use
words that denote one thing and use them for something else?
3 Nephi 15:21"And verily I say unto you, that ye are they of whom I said: "Other sheep I have
which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one
fold, and one shepherd."

3 Nephi 15:22 "And they understood me not, for they supposed it had been the Gentiles; for they
understood not that the Gentiles should be converted through their preaching."

Christ is universal. He does not have favoritisms. One shepherd means one shepherd of everyone,
not a group. Yet we are to believe the opposite, why? Why ask me to believe that there is a special
flock? I still have to find out.

3 Nephi 28:8 "And ye shall never endure the pains of death..." 3 Nephi 28:9 "And again, ye shall
not have pain while ye shall dwell in the flesh..."

"Ye" here are another group of 12 apostles that Christ supposedly chose from among the Jewish
Americans to do the work that the original apostles did in Europe and Asia. So.. Christ let them be
immortal, where are they then? Invisible? I really want to understand what is meant by this.

And here I will end this part with one last question. Where did all this civilization go to? We are to
believe that in about the span of 900 years from when the history of the Book of Mormon ends, around
500AD to when the first Europeans came, all these groups with their towns, temples, culture etc. were
obliterated, and nothing of this is mentioned in the Book of Mormon. If they did disappear, then why so
much work by Christ to set them up only to have them turned in to a figment of our imagination? Are
we to believe they turned into Indians? That in such a short time all that knowledge was totally lost?
Did God erase their memories again? Not one artifact remains. All of that history all those efforts of
entire tribes to continue on, gone. Gone where?

The question is, were they even a part of reality? Or did I write all of this because one man had
such an intense imagination that others so enraptured by it decided that it were so? I really want to
know the truth of all of this and not have it hanging on a faith which does not respect reason.

Mormons still remain a mystery to me. That is not to say they are not wonderful people, cause they
are, but there is still a lot that I would have to have answered before I could say I really knew them. So
I'll keep delving into the mystery of the Mormons for a bit more....

7. The Evolution of Evolution

I have always enjoyed unrolling and unraveling things. When Christmas rolled around it was the
intense excitement of unwrapping presents and finding something new that kept me enthralled. The
same feeling enraptured me in a well written book, its plot unveiled little by little.

It was this sense that something was coming, something new, exciting or thrilling. But one
sensation that I never felt within all of this was haphazardness or blindness. Just because I didn't know
what was coming didn't make me think that just anything would come. I knew that this 'surprise' which
would spring forth upon me was something 'predestined' and not chaotic.

I didn't expect to find a bomb ticking away, or a chopped off hand or some disgusting substance.
Why? Because I knew from whom the gift came. I didn't know what the gift was but I knew who gave
it and that was more than enough for me. It made no difference to me what the gift was in the end be it
big or small, costly or cheap, or even strange. The basis of the gift gave assurance that it wouldn't be
something useless or bereft of meaning. There wasn't a 'chance' for it to be something out of place or
dangerous, even if it may, for an instant, appear so.

Why is the classical theory of evolution wrong? It is not because of what it states, but because of
what it presupposes. And what is presupposed is that there is no One or Thing that controlled or
directed or planned or allowed things to evolve. That's to say, there would be no One to surprise us with
changes, big or small, within a universe that was being directed to a climatic surprise which the same
universe was dying to see.

Can those who promote classical evolution prove there is no planner? No. What they do rather is to
dogmatically affirm without any proof whatsoever that what is at the basis of everything is...chance and
chaos. Now where did this come from? How about...being scared to death of God. How about...trying
to manipulate science unscientifically and irrationally in order to avoid anything having to do with
Him. It's called being - pardon the word - a coward, but I promise you they will have many other more
political, more suave names to call themselves.

Before we get into detail, let's just set the records straight. You can't talk about chance without
talking about purpose. What? You bet. Talking about chance without purpose is like a fish out of water.
Em no, it's like a fish without gills-its not a fish, or its something else.

Trying to define chance without purpose gives you a word without meaning. Note that we are not
talking about chance as something possible or probable. We are talking about something random,
chaotic or unpredictable. If you look up the word chance in a dictionary, most likely you will find that
it signifies the negation of something. In fact, it simply denies something as planned or directed.
Chance denotes the absence of something, not a positive entity, how then can it be a driving impulse?

Chance is void of meaning without purpose as its foundation, not vice versa, that means, sadly for
the evolutionists, that before you have any type of chance in the universe, you have purpose. How?
Because our words aren't self existing entities that have autonomy by themselves. They present to us
and others how things really are. So if chance depends on purpose to be defined, it also means that we
have seen this in reality as well. Chance falls within the greater circle of purpose, which comes first and
encompasses more.

You can try and try to divide them from each other in your mind and have fun creating a Hegelian
world where what you say goes, but that simply doesn't change anything.

Chance is exception, purpose is the rule. Do I say that a bird makes a nest for no purpose? Do I say
man makes a computer just by chance? Do I say 'thank you' to somebody just by chance? Is it just by
chance that I am writing this? Is it by chance that the billions upon billions of circumstances needed,
not just that are, but needed for life to exist on this planet - for the eye to function, for the universe
itself to spin in its intricate circles - is just by luck? It's like saying I can take a bunch of Legos, throw
them into the air, and hitting the ground out pops the Eiffel tower. Can we honestly take this seriously?
Em, no.

While Darwin worked on his theory of evolution, his Anglican faith began to evolve itself...into
unfounded agnosticism, well, let's be frank, he died an irrational atheist. All his ideas and investigation
started spinning round and round and spun God right off the map. His faith started breaking apart when
he had to confront the problem of evil (daughter dying young) which he couldn't explain with empirical
science. Surprising? When you try to solve every problem with a microscope you will remain in a very,
very small sphere to work in, literally. So there goes Christianity.

He finished off giving theism the boot when he discreetly convinced himself that the world worked
by fixed laws and needed no....law giver?!! This was the same guy who wrote a few years earlier that
he could not conceive the world without God because of its design. This is not evolution, this is
devolution. Talk about constructing castles in the clouds. Talk about dancing with contradictions
because of fear or frustration for not knowing everything, and then pretending to do so.

The problem of evil I have written about already, the problem of law without a director simply
makes no sense since law presupposes governance. If something happens repeatedly, does that denote
chance or purpose? If I put my clothes on every morning, does this happen in cold determinism,
unpredictable randomness, or do I direct it? In fact, I direct everything that I am conscious of. Now
where in the world did this come from? From a bacteria? From a chimp? From a rock? None can do
this, so what right do we have to say that it came from them? We didn't even observe this! The
conclusion then is totally, absolutely unscientific, nay, its totally uncommonsensical.

Neither laws, nor man's intellect comes from the chaotic movement of atoms and electrons. There
is no proof of it and you can't conclude it. Rather what we can conclude is that there was something or
someone who is not contained within this universe that gave the universe the possibility to run a course,
to be directed, to be governed and to take on traits that the governor has, because he can give them. We
conclude this by simply seeing that the other "possibility" is not a possibility.

I ask, how can you say all is chance and material if this thing which you call all material, all
chaotic - man - somehow finds or concocts this idea of a Director, the immaterial, or causality? How
may I ask did such an idea even have the possibility to come to light if there is absolutely nothing that
could even give a hint of it? Where, may I ask then, did these "crazy", "absurd", "ridiculous" ideas
come from? Are we going to admit that billions of people living now have a screw loose upstairs
because they use their heads and see as clear as day that there has to be a cause for there to be an effect,
or a law giver for a law?

And speaking about giving and gaining traits. Anyone, and I am talking about anyone, who has
studied just a little biology, or has two eyes even, will see that natural selection is not something that
just happened a certain number of years ago, but happens daily. Why do you think that penicillin
sometimes doesn't work. Maybe because the little bacteria who have some wild desire to live and
survive, (go figure), have this amazing capacity to mutate and throw dirt in the face of what we thought
we had under control, and then, o my, they can give that trait to their many asexual offspring! If this
happens now, why on earth would we be so surprised that it would happen millions of years ago?

These people who think that all is set up by chance also think that because mutations happen it
somehow confirms this. What it really does is confirm that the very Being that gave laws to nature has
not let it go like a clock but keeps showing time and time again that he is in charge and can add new
laws, change them, or surprise his creation with something totally new.

Mutations within a species are not something new, it is something commonsensical. Genes are
static on the one hand so that what they got which is good will remain, but also dynamic so that if the
thousands of circumstances that they will encounter shove something at them that doesn't allow the
thing to continue on they can change and adapt to it. Why is this surprising? If I were this Being-
governor, I would have directed it the same, maybe because he allows me to think somewhat like him?
After millions of adaptation of millions of these things could you get to where we are now? It is very
feasible, maybe even correct.

Massive jumps within the order of the universe though are not mutations. A man is not a mutation
of a chimp. No rock, no matter how much it would like to mutate into an animal, even the most
simplistic of them, is not going to get there, neither in a year nor in a trillion. Why? Because life is a
totally different cup of tea compared to a rock. There is nothing in a rock that would allow it to get
there. So what happens? A surprise! This Being (God of course), decides, yes decides, to add something
new. Is this theology? I'm sorry but no. It's called, rather, you can't give what you don't have, a very
simple commonsensical principle. So if a rock can't give it, then the author of the rock probably can.

I know lots of evolutionist want to think and be convinced that we came from apes, I'm sorry to
burst their bubble but that couldn't happen. They will rant and rave on the similarities of apes and man,
of how they even seem to "think" the same, but, hate to break it to you, apes don't think. "WHAT!" they
cry. I know, sometimes the truth can hit you hard.

To think is to plan, direct, expand, transcend what is material. Apes ain't got it, never will, and
never did. Apes, just like any and every other animal, yes, including those smarty dolphins, can't go
beyond what they sense or are directed to do, and never will. Man, though, can take from those things
he senses what is not sensed, like a dragon or a cell phone tower. He and only he can go against what
he was directed to do, something that has baffled man himself for many a year.

This capacity doesn't just pop up out of nowhere. It can't, so we should stop pretending that it can.
It was another "surprise" of the Director. Now whether God decided to zap an ape and give him this
capacity to where the poor ape didn't know what hit him, or zap a prince charming out of thin air, is not
up to me or the evolutionist, but up to him, so let's stop saying we know when we don't have enough
evidence. The zapped ape could have immediately started mutating quite rapidly to what we have
today. Yet that does not mean that prince charming was not an option.

And what about macro evolution, or the theory that states, for example, a particular dinosaur which
had no feathers or wings, after a few generations, suddenly had them? Is this possible? Well, I have to
break it to the creationists, but yes it is. In fact, this would be less exotic than having, from one second
to the next, a flying dinosaur in a tree where a moment before there was none. In other words, we have
no right to limit how God wants to surprise us or direct his creation.

Neither the creationists nor the evolutionists can take fossils, fruit flies or the Bible and base their
argument on it. Fossils give us a photo of the past, but NOT how it proceeded. Fruit flies tell us what
can happen now, but tell us nothing about a billion years ago. The bible tells us about God and how to
find him, NOT how to find the key of a biological process that took millions of years. Are we to go so
far as to say that because the Bible doesn't mentions bacteria, they didn't exist at the beginning?

You can't argue about what you don't know, and doing so just shows that truth is the last thing you
are looking for.

So what has this "theory" of evolution evolved into? The following: This theory junk, we're going
to throw it out the window. The mutation stuff, micro evolution anyway, is true, now and then, so it
ain't theory. Macro evolution is logically possible so it can't be excluded. In regards to exactly how
things evolved, or came to be, we don't have enough information, so we will be humble and anything
said about it will be called hypothesis. Finally, massive jumps in the universe, like life, and then the
capacity to think, have nothing to do with evolution, because they don't evolve. They are a mark
stamped on creation by the Governor of the universe and continue on through thick and thin.

When we finally give up our puny ideas and faint certainties, becoming a child once again and
letting this Father of ours surprise us with wondrous possibilities, queer, maybe shocking, but always
planned and directed, then, and only then will we better understand this wild mystery of reality.

I can't wait for next Christmas.

8. Thought on Fire
This is a part of the introduction of a book I am writing...

Prelude: The drama

“Sir, this God you speak of, this wondrous all good, all powerful being, which creates all and gives
life to all, I see as a blatant lie, for evil and suffering mock it, radical religion testifies against it, science
blasphemes it, and man’s desires ignore it. Tell me then how will you convince us of the contrary?
Come, tell us the story of God.” Anonymous Atheist

Every person I have encountered has a story. Each is different, though they might share similar
traits. However, one trait remains always the same and runs through each story. They all grew up, and
while growing up they all learned things, from others, by experience, by books etc. Both the religious
and the non-religious, the sensuous and the soldier, the poor and rich, man and woman.

More and more I sensed after speaking to someone that I was hearing an echo. He had absorbed
something in childhood and it formed him, molded him, and here was the fruit. I was not listening to
the person, but rather the conglomeration of persons and ideas grouped into something called culture
and he became its herald.

Then I would imagine setting him from birth in another land and culture, growing up differently.
Would he say the same things? Would he not think rather absurd the very things he appeared to be so
convinced of now?

The thought sent a shudder down my spine and the idea came to me, “are we not all slaves to what
we learn as a child or in the culture that we find ourselves?” Are we trapped in a world of ideas that
were thrown at us in our childhood days? Are we mindless zombies controlled by abstract ideologies?

Yet how did this reflection come to me? How was I able in a sense to jump out and look at the very
thing I was supposed to be trapped in? If culture ruled me, controlled me, then why was I able to take it
and analyze it and maybe even challenge it? How was I locked in if I could step out?

There was something more here than met the eye, and I wanted to know what it was. I didn’t want
to be a slave of ideas that had been given to me passively. I wanted to know how things really were. I
wanted to look at reality face to face and not through an intermediary. I decided to start learning again
and take the bull by the horns myself.
I sensed very poignantly with a “lightning’s-about-to-strike” expectation that the obtrusive
normality of reality was simply a guise, a mascaraed, to what really lay hidden. Hidden-simply this, not
lost, or imaginary, fake or false-but always there. It was the “unexplored” by most, the “fantastical” by
some, but the “unadulterated” and “pure” reality by the explorer. It was the “Part II” of a book that few
got around to reading.

I had found the following: a person hurled upon the stage of reality at his birth came with both
eyes wide, wide open, but with his mind not nearly so. He absorbed with ferocity all the colors, sounds,
movements and experiences that were being enacted, and found them amazing and delightful. All was
“new”, all “explorable” all “absorbable”, everything could be easily “known”. He would then dance
upon the stage in the midst of the many thousands of actors whirling around him and rejoice in his
new-found knowledge and security. Security-For he had watched with avid attention all portrayed and
had found what he considered to be his place, his niche within the picture or plot.

For from the very beginning when his eyes first fell upon this first scene, there grew within him a
perspective, never really clear yet always more intense, of this “other” the “not me” or the “what” and
he would begin to form his relationship to everything based on all the knowledge or datum bombarding
every capacity and sense he found himself armed with. Certain things he found fascinating, others
horrifying. He would categorize, qualify, measure, and then would play the part in which he found
himself more “in tune” with everything else.

But this at a certain moment began to transform itself, as knowledge accumulated, to something
quite different- to a “and then what...” or a “why?” A boundary had been crossed, and the security long
sought began to crack.

The hour had struck. A strike that shakes the foundation and center of every person. Heavy as
thunder, strong as crashing waves, it was time for the vision to change. Scene two began to unfold. The
curtains came down slowly all around the entertained and he found himself completely alone. The
terribly black plush curtains which seemed to absorb all sound and light surrounded and imprisoned
him. The world had turned inside-out.

The hour of trial, of true drama had come. This person who was not asked whether he wanted to
see the first scene of this “universal” drama is neither asked to see the second. All around him whispers
come seeping in, half-strangled messages trying to reach the ear of the new protagonist, trying to tell
him of the wonders awaiting and all the while a brilliant penetrating light pounds upon the curtains
from the other side demanding admittance, yet the curtains fight furiously back bending only slightly to
its fierceness.

The person stands dumbfounded. All acquired knowledge and security-where had it gone? What
had this simple little question done to his world? Up until this time no real major decision had to be
made in his existence, all was given to him. Now a blazing Platonic light threatened to undo all by
hiding everything that he knew and cherished within its rays. The whispers meanwhile continued their
chant of invitation to come out.

The person is confronted with a decision. The decision. Between adventure and normality,
suffering and security, joy and desperation, exploration and deploration. There awaits for the person
beyond the curtains something much more amazing, more astounding, more intense than could be
grasped by his mind’s eye up to this moment. Even the imagination itself desires to go beyond and
discover, but the decision does not lie within its power.
Alas, it is here in this decision where the person needs to confront his greatest fear- the unknown
or insecure. That which he strove so hard to finally free himself from comes to haunt him once again.

The unknown, the insecure, if only the creature knew that this was simply the next logical step in
his realization, but this step he must make alone and with what he has learned, and if what he has
learned is not enough, then what sadness, what terrible confusion comes as payment. Everything that
had passed was simply just a step, part of a process, part of a journey that continued on. He was not
learning to remain static, but as a preparation for something more. This shock of asking the why of it
all, of asking what lies further than that which I see, stands as a preparation to confront the hardest
things within the person’s existence. Those things which he must confront and will struggle with if he
wants to achieve a greater security-one that can never break.

So we may now behold the decisions of two types of persons, the one who listened and heeded the
whispers, having flung wide the curtains, faced the aggressive light, and walked boldly forward
knowing that this is what he must do and that he will find the answer to the “why” which shook his
existence, to go deeper into reality, to discover, to explore. The adventure, the insecurity is seen as part
of something bigger and these too will be understood. They too have a part to play in the second scene.

“Look beyond, go beyond, Look beyond, go beyond” sings the whispers and awakes an ancient
desire, embedded in what we are. This desire for an answer, the answer to existence and all that it
entails. It burns in us, consciously or unconsciously, more or less intensely, and is enkindled in
everyone in some instant in life.

The person does not die or give his life for belief in ghosts or dragons but he will die for an answer
to this question. There is no doubting here, we have seen it, heard it, and experienced it in the whole
history of mankind and in our daily lives. He will find an answer, or make it.

There is no greater example of the terrible abyss, the emptiness, the darkness, the person can enter
into than when in this greatest of all moments he says “no, I will not go.” “I will not seek, I will not feel
insecure!” Poor, weak creature, he has broken his nature with his very own nature, his greatest enemy
has become himself. Truncated and cut off from the answer which he needs to realize himself he finds a
thousand ways to fill the gap and distract himself from the ever aching lack of he knows not what.

It often begins with distraction-activity, movement, noise, pleasure, even sleep. He will seek to
artificially intensify and repeat the few experiences found in the first scene in order to drive out the
ever constant whispers and ever-beckoning light that feigns to promise only suffering upon encounter
in the second.

Alone. Without the answer what is he? Who is he? He proceeds then, after unending distraction to
drive his own imagination and intellect into slavery. They are forced to project upon these once
obnoxious curtains the artificial bleak reality that was and the new, controlled, empty and made illusion
that has usurped the gap reality was to inhabit. Theories are made, rules denied, and the self made
dictator takes his seat within his new realm.

And there he sits, the person, in his little world, so terribly small and unreal, yet enough for him.
Life passes, and in the illusion the person finds hundreds of elixirs to extend or try to extend this made
world forever, but the fruit in the end is the forgotten tombstone, a great and bold monument for those
who heed the message. Many will say that life is a mystery, but the greatest of mysteries is life without
meaning. On this forgotten tombstone of the man who construe his feeble illusions there is written with
letters invisible but deeper and stronger than those banged by hammer and chisel the one question,
never answered, and yet still pending- “Why do I exist.”

There is drawn upon a certain unnamed viewer of this tombstone a smile, tinged with pain, as he
looks at the panorama. Nothing, wasted, normal. In a few hundred years the words chiseled would be
stripped away leaving a bare blank stone becoming the vanguard of forgotteness, yet the other question
is still there. To the viewer, there is still a memory of something, for in the moment of the changing of
the scenes long ago he was there and he looked into the eyes of fear of he who would not dare to leave.
The viewers eyes fill once again with compassion, this sharing of suffering which he felt as he
experienced within himself this same fear, but with the great difference that he knew there was a
solution to it. Moreover the fear he had had a glimpse of in the eyes of the other pushed him even more
to go forward. He would not let it conquer him. It would be purged if the answer was sought, and he
was being purged at this very moment. For what to most is unnerving, to him was a door. Instead of
running away from reality, of denying it, he confronted it, embraced it. Fear and insecurity had allowed
him to see the opening in the curtains and bade him forward and so the adventure began.

In that far off hour when he had turned away from the person of cowardness, he walked timidly
through the deathly curtains and faced the light. The light drove at him, pierced him, and searched him
out. The feeling of burning was felt, but a healing burning, like alcohol on a wound. His head felt
heavy, it hurt, pain seared it. The whispers beckoned him forward. He took a step and the rest of him
felt light. A few steps further and he began to see clearly again. But what clarity! What penetration!
What peace! Scene two opened up to something much greater, much more intense, more beautiful and
sublime. Colors were extreme, those dark, even darker, those light filled with something which made
them glow. The contrast smote his eyes once again, and the reaction in his heart was a complete
mixture of greater happiness and greater sadness woven together. The darker colors seemed cruel, yet
they were indeed a part of the whole, they had their right, their meaning, for they pushed the lighter
colors to exaltation.

Everything he knew before was there and had a welcoming strangeness, something of the
strangeness that he vaguely remembered from his childhood, yet was renewed and deepened. The
expedition was begun again, the journey was struck out anew. Scene two began to unfold.

The answer to the “why?” was now sought. Each experience became a clue, a piece to fit with
others. Each new idea a new transfiguration of reality, one more “click” of the rubric’s cube.

Such a different vision, reality respected, suffering accepted, both new and wild as a stallion
tearing through a plane. Reality was crying out something yet it took every ounce of strength to
understand, for the language was as old as reality itself.

Now after intense exploration and purification he beheld the door of death, desired and awaited,
for it held the last clue. It was the final act of scene 2. He knew now that scene 3 was coming, but this
time he was ready. The change would be still greater and more strangely fantastic than the previous for
it required a greater and heavier decision, but the clues were in place. There was no doubt now, the
answer, which he had seen a glimpse of through all his trials would finally reveal itself. He was ready
for the next adventure and the drama continued...

Such is the story which I found to play itself out among the unique creatures called men. Very few
from those I knew went beyond the curtains to confront the light, to explore, and this is the very reason
of this book, to push, to motivate, to try in some way to give a wake up call to the reality of reality.
Posted by MOVE at 10:10 PM 0 comments

9. The Priesthood and Petty Women

If someone came up to you and asked “Hey, if I give you a lot of money, and make you very
popular, and give you a lot of privileges, will you risk your life every day by running through a mine
field, jumping over quicksand puddles, get shot at by a ferocious enemy in order to bring back one
person on the return trip from a prison?"

How many do you think are going to raise their hands to do this, even if there was A LOT of
money involved and A LOT of privileges, and you got to be VERY popular? Be honest, one out of five
hundred, maybe...

Now how many do you really think would complain if they could not do this? Maybe one (crazy)
out of a hundred thousand.

Guess what, when women start complaining about not being able to be priests, its about as crazy as
complaining about the former.

The problem here is that for some wild reason some women think that the priesthood is only a
dignity and not a VERY HEAVY responsibility. That is what makes this look totally out of place.

The only reason one would want to be a priest is either because they have no idea what it entails,
or they have a very good idea what it entails and are ready to be a MARTYR, that is, ready to die, in
every sense of the word, like in the example above.

There has to be something slightly not right about you if you are complaining about wanting to
have a position where you are called to die at any moment and in any way for others.

And indeed that is what this position entails, and because no one seems to know this, or strip it of
its essence, they get this weird idea that it would be good to have.

Even on a simple cultural level, looking at the history of this church which is called Catholic, the
priesthood was meant at the very beginning as a service, to serve others, to give yourself wholly to
others, without reserve, which meant to sacrifice yourself, giving up what you wanted to do or be or
have, and forget yourself. Even those who were married still gave up time, took away time from their
marriage and gave it to help this church which had just begun to grow.

It makes no difference whether today some try and twist the priesthood into something else. They
don't have a right to, just like I don't have a right to enter a fitness club one day and say, “guess, what,
today I am not going to pay anything and use this equipment.” If a group I want to join or participate in
has certain rules or traditions, I either follow these rules or I don't join. If you try to join and change
everything, I simply consider you off your rocker.

People think the priest today is someone who gets up, speaks in front of people for an hour or so,
then goes and plays golf, comes back, does some administrative stuff, may talk to a couple of people in
the afternoon, gets paid for it, receives a lot of privileges and gets to feel important. Where did this
come from? Who said this was the way it should be?

It's a warped idea of a tiny part of what this service could or should entail.

Within this normal 'service' which is already, from the beginning, a lot of work when it is lived
correctly, from giving up time for others to letting go of what they want, there are three other aspects
that make this 'dignity' a super heavy responsibility. They are prayer, suffering, and example.

I want to know how many of these women who complain about not being able to be priests really
know what to pray means? Are they ready to confront God every day and see their misery, their
littleness and know, which they can only know in prayer, how much they have to change? Are they
ready to intercede for others in prayer, really knowing that if their prayer is intense enough, it will be
answered? If so, guess what, religious and nuns do the same, so you gain nothing here from being one
or the other.

I want to know if those who complain are ready to suffer? Do they know that as a priest they are
called to take upon themselves every suffering of every person they come across as their own? They are
to bear it, feel it, share it with the other, no matter how heavy it may be because they are called to
alleviate all those who suffer by taking it upon themselves and suffer double - their daily pains along
with those of others? Are they ready to bear all this? If so, I'm sorry to say, but again, the religious and
nuns do the same so again you gain nothing by wanting the other.

I want to know finally if those who complain are ready to give example? Of whom, to who? Of
Christ, to all. This is the hardest in the end to fulfill. The priest is called to be an icon of Christ on earth,
and that means to embrace humiliation, pain, misunderstanding, and death. It means ready to be shot at
in order to defend this Way Christ gave to man to realize himself, both metaphorically when people
criticize and calumniate you, and physically when they shoot you for having grown bored of doing the
former. It means letting go of your own puny desires and whims. It means never complaining. It means
being patient, it means preaching the truth, no matter how hard or dangerous it might be. It means
leaving yourself aside and putting others first. Can they do this? Well, guess what.... you got it, so can
religious and nuns, nothing here again.

So what are these women looking for?!! Do they want to celebrate the Eucharist and hear
confession? Do they know the great mystery the priest has in his hands during the transubstantiation?
Do they know that they hold their very creator in front of them, the very God who will be before them
on the day of their death, on the day of judgment, and will recall to them this very 'dignity' they were
given and the very heavy responsibility that flows forth from it and how their lives had to correspond to
it?

Do they know that each time the priest hears confession his salvation has intertwined with the
confessed? Do they know that if they are not instruments of God in this moment they can cause a soul
to separate itself from God? Do they know that this will be brought before them on the very day they
confront the one who gave such a terrible gift?

Does anybody have the right to complain when the responsibility of such a gift is so great of not
being able to?

Only someone who is terribly holy could stand and ask for such a terrible gift. These holy people
are called saints in this church, and what is wildly amazing is that NONE of them have ever
complained of not getting or asked for such a gift!!!

Go read these women who were called saints and you will find that all understood the greatness
and the terribleness of the priesthood, they did not ask for it because they never dared. Does this show
weakness? No, it shows wisdom, wisdom in knowing that the ministry of the priesthood is so great that
only God could choose the ones he wanted to fulfill it and that at the personal risk of the one being
asked. The risk of not fulfilling the mission, the vocation that God calls the priest to.

With great power comes great responsibility, isn't that what the uncle of spider man said in the
movie? And with greater responsibility comes greater and more perilous consequences. Are these really
worth complaining about when I can't have them? Does it make sense to?

Each person who calls himself Catholic is called to love and to serve. I have never known anyone
who really does this complain about anything, whether they have something or not, do something or
not, get something or not, because when we do, we simply don't love.

Loving has got nothing to do with thinking of myself or what I want. Rather, it is about forgetting
about myself and giving myself to others. It is about laying myself down and becoming that 'bridge
over troubled water' for others. Its about letting God be in charge, letting him fulfill his plan as He, the
almighty, the all-knowing, the all-wise, knows much, much better than we do how it should come to
pass. Its about letting him work through us as instruments which sing and play in that particular, special
way he has directed from all eternity.

So, who cares if this church called Catholic has stated that only men become priests or even if only
men should stand on their heads! If the essence of Catholicism is to love and not worry about what I
want, who really should care? Petty women who don't know what they are asking for? Can't we just go
back to worrying about what God wants instead of ourselves?

Yet, for those who want a "because" there is a tad more to offer which boils down to the following:
why do we think that one quality that one sex has is better/worse than another of the other sex? In other
words, what makes, say, having big muscles "better" than say the possibility of being pregnant in the
eyes of so many people?

Why is it so hard to grasp that the sexes are different for a reason and not just cause they happen to
be so? Yea, we could just make up an army full of women to fight and have the men stay at home and
genetically change them to have kids, but why? Why do we think that because we "can" do something
we could do it in the future. So if we "can" take drugs we should be able to do so whenever we want
right? On what is such awful logic based upon?

Men and women are the same in many ways; we both have bodies, intellect and will, but then
differences follow and to try and make them both the same makes no sense - why then have two
different names for them? And the differences are NOT only corporeal but also psychological and even
existential. We are not exactly the same and we do not act exactly the same.

Does that mean that one sex has something "better" than the other. No. It means simply that they
are different and those differences are complementary. It does not logically follow that 'if I am
different, then I am worse or bad', no sorry, you can't prove this.

Christ came to earth in the form of a man. Does that mean that God considers woman on a second
plane? no, no and no. The greatest creature in fact that God ever made was a woman, His biological
mother

Christ chose being a man because based on the mission involved he desired certain characteristics
that He as Creator infused within that sex when He created it in order to fulfill the particular mission or
plan which He saw as best respecting human nature as a whole.

Again does this mean that women aren't up to par with men or that they "lack" something in
relation to them? No, it means they are different and have a different mission. "But, I want that mission,
I want that quality, I want that 'job' ".

But what makes us in the end happy, what I want, or what is best for me? History and common
sense answer that. I will not be happier doing something that God has not planned for me, or having
something he has not made me to have. What is the sense of warping this? Why try to force something
so I can warp happiness. "I'm happy because I do what I want." I'm sorry but you are a lier, however
hard that sounds, because those who try and warp reality to create their own happiness are the ones
who in the end, in extreme cases, commit suicide, and no I know of not one case in which one who has
followed reality, did what would objectively give them happiness, which is to follow the nature that
was given them and fulfill the mission assigned to them, ever committed suicide, not one.

So he has chosen men as priests. Why do we argue this? Yes, it does take a detailist to perceive the
characteristics that would allow a man to take on the priesthood as opposed to a woman, but they are
there, and to say that "that's not fair" means we haven't looked hard enough, because God is not stupid
and knows what he is doing.

A man's psychology is made to be "beat" for example, to resist blows or hardship, but this will
make him less sensitive and more "coldly objective" which is needed in confessing, for example, or
fighting. On the flip side a woman's psychology is more sensitive, detailed and "warmly subjective",
allowing for better comprehension, perfect for nurturing, healing etc.

Does this mean that the other sex does not have these qualities? No, does it mean that a few of the
other sex would not have these qualities to an intense degree, No, but these are called exceptions. Does
this mean that one sex is "bad" for not having the other quality to a greater degree, NO! They are made
that way to be complementary because we can't do everything perfectly!

Why can't we admit then that we were made to be dependent on each other? Maybe because our
pride is to big? Maybe because we want to warp reality and make it into something I want? Maybe
because I want to be God? Yea, right. Have fun.

10. True Foundation of Evil

In one of my former blogs (Where is a Good God when you need him) I commented on the fact
that we blame God many times for the evils around us. It was shown in a commonsensical manner that
this could not be the case. But I would like to go further and try and answer the question as to why does
a creature have the possibility to be evil at all. For this I will have to throw a monkey wrench in the
gears of our former argument and you'll have to get ready for a bumpy ride.

God is, in some amazing way, the indirect cause of evil! What?! Pretty heavy right? Here the
problem lies in how God is, which few understand, and how we are.

What do we know about how we are? Within the drama that we call life, we know that things don't
go as we would like or as they appear they should. We see things move, crumble, spring forth, die,
struggle, eat and sleep to survive, play and perish.

There is a tension, a dynamism, we perceive in everything, in ourselves and what is around us.
Everything seems to project itself to somewhere, or seek to achieve something. Animals seek to live
and reproduce, inanimate objects seek to fall or to continue on in their movements, they and ourselves
are aiming for something or to go somewhere.

Yet there is always this 'counter impulse' that appears to throw everything off. Things corrupt, they
don't achieve their goal many times, they get thrown off the mark, they fail. Out come genetic defects,
homicide, avalanches, suicide, hunger, even death. We call all these things evil, but not all these things
really are. Yet what is evil and what appears to be so both have the same foundation.

What is this foundation? Well, it would appear that whatever it is, it's the opposite of what
everything is searching. So what's everything searching for (and how long are we going to keep asking
questions)?!

If man wants to be good and happy, if animals want food and to reproduce, if things want to fall or
move, can we put all these things in one category? What are all these things looking for?! Let's call
them perfections. O.K.? Things look to be better, more perfect, than what they are now, in some way.
Even falling rocks gain a new place, a new way of being, when they fall. So what is the opposite of
this? Imperfection.

Whew, finally the answer! All these wild and crazy things that we think out of place have as their
foundation imperfection. They are in some way imperfect. They in some way lack something they
should, or want to have. They are missing something, and that is what makes or allows things to fail.
Thing that are missing something they should have we call evil. Things that lack something they don't
have to have, but would make them better we just call imperfect.

If a man gets killed, we call that evil, an imperfection that should not have been, but if a man could
be stronger, or could fly even, we just call that being imperfect, something that does not have to be.

We are getting closer to the answer even though it may not look like it! If it is the case that
everything around us is imperfect, then we have a problem, because although they are so, as we said,
they tend to want to be perfect.

But how could they want that unless there was something perfect that gave them that inclination or
desire or tendency? It goes back to another principle we mentioned in another blog: that something
can't come from nothing and there is absolutely no way to prove the contrary. One might interject that
the 'Big Bang' came from nothing or that men (intelligent) came from chimps (non-intelligent), but
there is no scientific proof for this. Just because I see something a certain way does not mean that it is
that way! If that were the case there would be no way of knowing if 'fake' diamonds were real, if a man
were killing for self defense or for hatred, if someone cried out of sadness or joy, if someone had sex
out of lust or love! There has to be an ulterior way to confirm what is seen, or we take chances of being
utterly disillusioned.
This desire for perfection has to come from somewhere and it has to come from something perfect,
and we are talking absolutely perfect, like as in it isn't missing anything, doesn't lack anything, doesn't
need anything. If it were imperfect in any way whatsoever, then it would be looking to be more perfect.

Now we are getting closer. Next question, is there a radical difference between what is absolutely
perfect (this thing that we are going to call God in the end obviously) and those things which are
imperfect to such a degree that there could be only one absolutely perfect thing while there being many
imperfect things? You bet! Why?! Because being absolutely perfect means it has all and any perfection
possible! Otherwise it would not be completely perfect, it would lack something. And how many
perfections are there? An infinite number! What!

Yea! You only have to look around to see the truth of this. Look at the terribly immense variety of
shapes, colors, sizes, qualities of everything that exists. And there could always be more, you only have
to look at your imagination to see that! There is no limit to the number of creatures or stories that we
can write about. There is an infinite number of possibilities that something could be, so there is an
infinite number of perfections that could be had (if I am strong, I could be stronger). So this thing, or
God, if he is absolutely perfect means he is infinite and not in just one way but in every way!

If your mind has not gone berserk with all this, then you are one smart cookie. This is tough to get,
there is no doubting it, but here we have to let logic take its course and not let our imagination try and
take control. Our imagination wants to have a picture of everything that we know, but something
infinite can't be pictured because all that we picture is finite.Don't worry we are almost there. We will
get back to evil, it's coming.

So the question is now, can we have two infinite things existing at the same time? No. Can God,
this infinite being, create another infinite being? NO. You can't have two infinite things existing at the
same time. Why? Well we take the simple examples of trying to put two things of the same type (say
two pieces of paper) in the exact same place, or trying to put two liters of water in a one liter cup. If a
place or a quality has been taken or used by one thing, the other thing can't have the exact same. Can
you park your car in the same place as someone else when their car is still there? Nope.

In some way it is the same with God. If God is absolutely perfect then he has all perfections and to
the greatest degree (which in this case is to an infinite degree). He is “strongest” “most intelligent” “the
best” because to be absolutely perfect is to be perfect in every way. You can't have two that are the
“best”. Not even in this world can you have two things exactly the same. It might appear so, but it
never is. Something will always be a millionth of a millimeter bigger or smaller etc. So if there is one
who is 'mightiest' then no other can be.

Finally we can start giving an answer. If the facts show us that there can be only one perfect thing
and all the rest must be imperfect then when God makes something that thing must be imperfect.
Whew! And given the fact that things are imperfect they will show that sooner or later. So that means if
man can be imperfect or evil, then it's gonna come.

God, by creating, is allowing evil to come, because he 'can't' create something absolutely perfect
like himself, so what comes will lack certain perfections, will be missing certain things. Some of these
imperfections he directs, like in not giving man the capacity to fly, but other imperfections come
because something else hinders it. Because man does not have a 'perfect' idea of good, he will fail in
doing 'good' always. (UNLESS God changes the nature of the thing giving it a capacity it did not have
before, such to man in heaven where his idea of 'good' is magnified way beyond what is normal for him
to such an extent that on a practical level he rarely, if ever, (meaning never) strays from what is 'good'.)

So God is indirectly the cause of evil, and though he does not want it, he allows it to be and he
must if he wishes to allow us to be happy, this capacity which entails choosing the objective good for
me from what is not so good. (Choosing to eat salad instead of ice cream does not make me feel good
at one moment, but it will in the long run make me feel better and healthier, but some don't choose it,
because they are imperfect and can fail to see this.) By choosing the good I realize myself, and in
realizing myself I am happy.

Any questions?

11. Behind the scenes on tough questions

Given the ferocity and and the popularity of certain topics today I have put together a small group
of articles by doctors or professionals in each of the following fields: Pornography, Sex, AIDS,
Abortion, Homosexuality, Population Control, Celibacy, and Feminism.

The articles, the majority taken from newspapers, give scientific, statistical, or commonsensical
data in relation to these topics and are a heavy arm to boost any philosophical or theological argument.
They are found here: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg7742g3_45gjrgh2cp

The greatest problem that people have most of the time is ignorance. If we could get the info out
into mainstream media, into the common 'logos' of society, there would be less confusion, and less
battles.

The utter lack of energy on the part of those who know the truth to give it is society's demise, NOT
the problems themselves or those who promote them. Anyone who thinks that I can be a 'good' person
and not strive to promote truth probably has no idea what to be good means.

We live in a society and we are relational beings. I don't just learn something and sit on it, I learn
something to give it later.

A security that is based on learning something which does not entail sharing, is a false security. It
simply means you were never convinced of the truth in the first place. For those who have ears, let
them hear.

12. Love letters from....a friend


Dear Friend,

Been a while since I last wrote to you, but so many things have happened over the past few years
that I thought it was about time.

I always wondered what kept our friendship going even after the many problems we have gone
through. Maybe it was because we finally thought that friendship, or loving someone else genuinely,
wasn't supposed to be like most people think, transitory, sensual, selfish, or utilitarian.

We had to fight and suffer a lot to do this, what with so many messages bombarding us every day
in the media, with all the advertisements that we saw, even on Facebook and Perfspot and even within
our own group of friends that constantly told us that it was illusory to develop a good friendship or
really love each other without looking to get something out of it for ourselves.

It is really sad, isn't it, that society doesn't let us really love? It keeps on telling us to get all we can
out of a relationship, suck the other dry of what they got, so that we can feel better ourselves. All those
songs and movies and videos etc. we heard and saw so much that invited us, well, rather pushed us to
'strip' the other of who they were, and leave them as an object, a instrument of pleasure, a corps on the
road.

Do you remember how bad we felt, after we saw all that porn and sung all those songs and did all
those erotic things? Remember how they told us that constraining our passionate desires was unhealthy,
that we were wimps if we did, that we were losers if we did, that we would never be really free if we
didn't? Remember how we laughed at it all and thought we were having fun? Remember how
superficial our relationship became?

Remember how we never had a serious conversation afterwards? We couldn't speak about almost
anything, and we were forgetting how the other was, who we were even.

Why did they lie to us like that? We lost so much time! So many years, empty. Sure we were
'happy' at the moment, we felt 'free' for a moment, we felt like we were 'flying' but they never told us of
the misery that would follow, they never told us of the emptiness. How we hated them, despised them,
or it, society, these people and singers and movie starts spitting out their message and poisoning us so.
But we never showed it did we? We kept our stoic smiles on the whole time, we kept on telling
everyone that everything was fine and we kept on doing it, till finally this so called "friendship" that we
had began to fade away like a sandcastle amid the waves.

We began to hate each other, didn't we? After having searched for only what we wanted, what we
desired, after this little black hole of our passions began to devour everything around until there was
nothing else for it to eat except our own identities. As we began to hate each other, we began to hate
ourselves. Loneliness set in, what loneliness....

Then the day came when we took our separate ways. We didn't speak to each other for so long, so
long...

Little did we know that something was going to happen that would change us forever.

Long after that I can't remember how many times I asked myself this one question: "What is love?"
What does it mean? How do you live it? What does it mean to be a friend? So many nights of insomnia
just to get a glimpse at what went wrong. How I cried...

You know I never believed in God, and I don't think all the arguments in the world would have
convinced me of his existence. But what happened to me was no argument. It was more of a dream,
you know what I mean, this thing that happens but you simply can't believe it could. But on that night, I
saw a glimpse of Him, and there is no way I could deny him afterwards.

I was in the bar, the usual one, and a girl who was completely drunk hit her head on the table. She
went down like someone had killed her. We all stared, no one moved, or they ignored it, as if it didn't
happen. The sensation made me sick, but I kept on staring.
Suddenly out pops a guy about our age, goes to her and then stares at me and asks me to help him,
I remained in shock for a second more but he kept staring and yelling at me to help, so I got up and we
took the girl to his car and drove her to the hospital. We took her into emergency, explained what
happened, and I thought we were going to head out. But this guy doesn't move! He sits down as if he
was going to wait!

I have to say I was still a little lost, what with six beers behind me, I wasn't quite fully aware of
what was up. Like some dumb idiot I sat down beside him and zoned out for a minute. When I came
back I fired a question at him: "Was that your girlfriend?" "Did you know her?"

Know what he says? No! I said "What!?" and pretty loud too and immediately regretted it. This
guy was waiting to find out about someone who he didn't know at all! A few more uneasy minutes went
by (maybe a few more, it might have been a half hour, no idea) and I asked him "Why are you waiting
then?"

The answer gave me the second shock of the night, and I thought that with one more of them, I
would surely have a heart attack. This guy says, "Well, you don't have to know someone to love them,
to be a friend to them. If you give yourself a little you'll always be happy and they will too." At that
moment the doctor came out and said she was in critical condition and may not finish the night. This
guy closes his eyes and begins to recite something, and didn't open them back up from what I
remember, which is not much, because then I really zoned out with the shock and soon after must have
fell asleep. When I woke up he was gone and the doc told me the girl had died. Guy didn't wake me up
cause he thought I needed to sleep. I walked out and didn't where to go or who I was.

Then I stopped suddenly and laughed, a laugh that filled me and all around. The answer! The
answer came so strong and so powerful that there was nothing in the entire world that could have
stopped me from laughing, not even a gun in my face or the news I received five minutes before. The
answer had come! It came with the little phrase of the guy the night before. Give yourself! Give
yourself! So stupidly simple, so easy. So hidden yet so obvious! If I had been in despair after having
taken so much, wanted so much, maybe if I gave....!

What a happy fool I was! What revelation! What wild strangeness! This wasn't a movie or a
remake of "Its a wonderful life" or "A Christmas Carol". It was hard core real. And I still could not
believe how radically simple it was.

But, yet, I had to put it to the test obviously. The first was to tell you I was sorry. How that hurt!
How that burned me! But something drove me on. This burning I felt was purifying me, tearing away
the filth that had been dumped on me by society. Man it hurt! This little principle was definitely NOT
going to be easy to live. I was not laughing any more, but I was convinced, convinced of a principle I
didn't fully understand. It pushed me now, and how it cracked the whip!

Yet I learned more about it from each act I did, each act of humiliation and generosity to others.
And then I began to do it to strangers. I gave, time, energy, food, consolation, motivation. NONE of it
was easy, in fact I felt straight out terrible doing it, but it was a feeling like that which we felt when we
were 'flying' with pleasure. It was superficial, transitory, passing. Yet there, under it all was this
gigantic, astronomically strong and powerful peace or happiness that supported everything, and with
each action, became stronger.
I was finally truly free! I tore away from me those insidious lies that had bled me so and sent them
flying into oblivion. Each step against the flow of my puny desires towards giving myself gave me new
dynamism and new vigor. I became someone else finally...the real me that had lied dormant for so long
could now walk the earth without shame. I was indeed free.

Yet there was still another question that rose within this new vision and that was, "Why?" Why was
I happy now? Why was the world so against this principle? They simply did not know, they never did,
yet some found it. How?

Why was giving yourself to others or really truly loving so ignored, so despised, when it was the
only way to be really happy? I felt so sad for those who had not 'gotten it'.

So my mind began its little journey in search of the answer, it looked and looked, and the more it
did the more convinced I was that the answer was not here! Its origin could not be from this chaotic
world that enveloped us! If so many were ignorant, so many were against it, almost no one promoted it,
millions despised it, millions more promoted the opposite, so many died for lack of it, the only
conclusion I could come to is it could not possibly be simply human.

No impossible, there was too much against it here. If it were human more would follow it, if it
were like a video game, more would play it. but no, so there had to be something more.

Not only this but I knew it came not from a something, but a someone! I saw that the universe
moved in its constant circles, but they were cold, and I knew that nothing non-personal could motivate
me so, could move me so to so great a surrender.

Someone was giving me happiness! It was not coming from me, it couldn't, because many times I
despised what I did for others to give myself, and it did not come from the things around me, yet at
every turn, there happiness was given to me! This someone was motivating me, he was giving to me,
he was loving me! I knew it had to be so, because when I gave myself to others, when I helped them, I
saw with my own eyes that they too were happy! So in some mysterious way, I knew, with absolute
certainty, that this someone was giving himself to me in some way, and in doing so, I was tremendously
happy.

Yet there was a link. It was only when I freely gave that I experienced this someone giving to me, I
only understood this someone when I imitated him. Before I was in complete darkness, now I could
see. I needed others to give myself to, in order to find the one who had given all to me.

The road had been tough, and even with all this there were still other questions....

Yet the biggest obstacle was conquered and it drove me on. There was no other principle that I
would die for or defend than that of self giving to be happy. The world could not take it from me, nor
suffering, nor incomprehensible pain, nor the shrieks of despair that the world spewed forth.

No nothing. I sailed amidst the greatest storm. My little boat would be toppled many times, but a
small sliver of light always pierced the darkest clouds and it guided me along to my final destination, to
Him, and the storm became an instrument which was transformed into fire which purified me, seared
me, leaving ashes of anxiety and pride to float away in the winds of fortitude. I reflected the light that
came from above and it filled me. He was there, and He loved me.
My joy became complete when you had found Him as well. We rejoiced and continued on and
continued to give and sought more people to tell. We continue to do so right?

Shall we invite those who have read this to the same? Yes let's.

Do you want to love and be happy?

13. Such distortion on Abortion

Why is it that the States go bonkers over something so simple as Abortion? The raging battle reminds
me of a game of Risk where the pro-abs build up an army (a center) and the pro-lifs come and conquer
it (get it to close). And so the story goes on throughout the country. Why is it so darn hard for a country
(this or any) to figure out what is right and what isn't in regards to this point? What do we have to do,
bring Einstein back from the dead and pay him a six figure number for an answer? We seem to be able
to arrive at a universal consensus at what it means to kill, or what murder is, but we don't seem to have
capacity enough to figure out if abortion is murder. What the blue blazes happened?

What's at the root of this haphazard? We don't even know who we are, or what we are and so life
turns out being bereft of meaning. What is the sense of going through life and not having the foggiest
idea what for? Why is it so hard to ask "What am I doing here?" just once so as to get life on a track
to....somewhere.

There are many "reasons" for one saying that abortion wouldn't be murder. "The 'thing' growing in
me is simply 'not human'." "It's my body, the 'thing' is a 'part' of me, so I can do what I want." "I'm not
ready to be a parent, I don't have money, resources...." The list goes on and on....

Have these people ever once for more than 0.5 seconds thought that if their parents had said the
same thing and aborted, they wouldn't be around to say that now? And if their parents had not gone
through with it, but for some reason still had our protagonist, how would she think of her parents then?
Could she say that they loved her, or rather thought her "a nuisance"? How would it feel to know that
you were never loved?

And this is the first thing I just don't get. I see these same girls go off and almost beg other people
for attention, for love, and then when there comes along the opportunity to give attention to this "thing"
or "someone" who's gonna be in the future a "someone" like you and me who will want the same thing,
they seem to blast off to Pluto and forget that this could possibly be!

The hard core, 'in your face' problem is NOT whether this zygote or "thing" or "person" is a person
at the beginning, but rather if I think life is good enough, great enough, worth enough, important
enough to let this zygote or 'thing' or 'future person' or 'potential person' or 'person', partake in it. It
makes no difference what you think it is at the beginning, because we know what it will be in the end. I
have never seen a woman give birth to a giraffe or mouse, so what's coming out is gonna be, yep, a
person. A person who will love, hate, cry, sleep, desire, play, and dance for joy like you and me.

If life to any potential future mother deep down, where no one sees, appears as a drudgery, bleak,
dark, boring, sad, empty, mediocre, full of pain or problems-simply put-a life without love, real love (a
point we will see in the next blog), then excuses will abound and multiply without end.
But, if life is seen as a gift, a joy, worth living, full of meaning, full of possibilities, a preparation,
with all its pain and suffering, for something infinitely greater, a door to eternal happiness, a place
where I will find someone who loves me and gives me happiness, then how, HOW could I not want to
give this to a future someone?

It makes no sense to have something I call a 'gift' and not want to give it, for then it is no gift, and I
fall in gnarled contradiction.

No man, who sees a rose as beautiful and good, and knows that it would make his beloved happy,
would refrain from getting it somehow to give to her. If there is such a one, I want to meet him for I
would doubt him to be human.

Why then would someone who saw life as beautiful and good not want to give it, even though it
would mean giving up something else in the process? The answer is they never saw life good to begin
with. And if they never saw life as good, it's because they never understood it.

I know that life is not a romance, and in it there are tough things to decide and tough consequences
to confront. It appears though that most know this, so this 'tough decision' of giving birth and facing the
hard road that follows, whether it be giving up the child for adoption, or having to work extra hours till
I don't even know my name, can't be so tough or surprising as some make it to be.

I ask, if life is so bleak, then why do you keep enduring it? Why not take not only the life of this
'future person' or 'person' but yours as well? What is the sense of withstanding all the suffering and
pain, if nothing comes of it? As Shakespeare wrote: "Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings
and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end
them?"

If, on the other hand, there is something deeper here, something I can't fully fathom, because I am
a poor creature, a plan which I don't fully see, that allows, even among the pains and sufferings of this
life, some happiness that does not depend on physical or sentimental or psychological contingencies, to
sprout forth from the ashes of human drudgery, then maybe, just maybe, the noblest, most courageous,
most loving thing to do would be to give that child life, and let the mystery of life take its course in
order that I and the child can be fully happy by accepting this suffering that comes my way.

If I cut off the possibility of allowing a future child to look at me with the eyes of complete trust,
waiting to absorb the mystery of life with all he's got so as to gain as well this hidden promise of
eternal happiness, then I do not think life worth living. And if I think it worthless, then, clearly, I will
not give it to someone else.

One can shout that they have freedom to choose what they want with what is their own, but where
is the foundation for this argument? Did you earn to live, did you give yourself life, did you have a
'right' to it? I'm sorry but no. You and I have life because it was given to us, it didn't have to be, and for
that reason there is no argument strong enough to say I have the right to take it away once it has been
given. Since when does a man go and demand the rose he gave to his girlfriend even though he may not
want to be with her anymore?

If that which is in the womb is growing into a person, what is the difference between that and a
child of 5 who is also growing into a full fledged person? Is it just because one can 'think' and the other
the possibility to do so? Does a six month old 'think'? What does that have to do with a 'right' to do
what I want?

Would one say it is because the zygote is 'in' me that I can do what I want? What does place have
to do with anything? Whether it is 'in' or 'on' or 'touching' has got nothing to do with it. Can I kill my
sister then just because she touches me?

Can I exterminate this 'thing' or 'person' just because it is dependent on me? What about a baby
who is 1 year old, is he or she not just as dependent on their parents? What is the difference? Can we
just go around and kill babies then? This new being is genetically different than the mother, so it is not
simply a 'part' of the mother like her hand, it is not a part in any shape or form.

As one goes deeper into the absurdities, it comes ever clearer that the main problem always
remains focused on a concrete human being either hating her own life, or hating the life of others, or
both.

To try and twist life into an illusory utopia where there is pleasure without pain, and where every
other person is forced to bow down to and become slaves of petty whims and desires always produces a
plaguing fear when the glass walls of this utopia crumble with reality's shattering blow.

Why is it so hard to love, to forget ourselves and think on others? Why is it so hard to see that
without love life goes in circles and up in smoke? Is it so hard to see the tears of these women, either
exposed or covered under mounds of empty self-righteousness after having snuffed out the most unique
chance they would ever have to give themselves to someone and to be absurdly happy? Is this really a
way to live life to the full?

Abortion has been distorted because we were all barking up the wrong tree. The key is one's
outlook on life - either distrustful or dynamic. The wild card to winning the game of Risk is in our
hands, all we have to do is use it.

14. What's with you and the tattoo?

I get a lot of people asking me where tattoos fall: in the good, the bad, or the ugly? Correct answer:
none of the above - just useless. Huh?

Let us elaborate. Once upon a time, those who had tattoos usually had "wild" tattoos. You know,
the skull with the snake coming out of it, or satanic figures etc. These guys wanted to make a point, but
what that point was, clearly was too deep for me. I don't know if they wanted to say "Hi, my life stinks"
or "your life stinks" or "Satan and I, we go way back" or they simply wanted to give Stephen King new
inspiration - beats me.

But then, a new generation came along and started engraving "positive" tattoos. Ones with
religious symbols, or praying hands, or the word 'family' in Japanese. Tattoos that didn't make you
think that all hell would break loose. Some who got them would actually have them to "give testimony"
of what they thought was 'good' or 'right'. Some would even go so far as to use them as a memorial of
some idea or person. (Though unless it were put on the hand or forearm, didn't achieve very much,
being covered most of the time.)

Man likes to make a statement with what he does and has. If that were not the case, he wouldn't
spend so much time in front of a mirror. So the question is, what does man need to make a statement?
The subjective answer is external decoration.

Take for example, earrings. No one seems to have discussions about earrings, but they are so
similar to tattoos that they could be called cousins. Think about it, for both (normally) you have to go
to a special place to get them done. Both during and after cause a bit of pain. Both modify the body in
some way. Both, if one wanted to reverse the process, would have to wait a 'little' for it to heal. Both
are had to add "beauty" or 'intensity" to the body.

If someone thought that earrings or tattoos were ugly, they would be forgotten. So women (and
some men) are convinced that getting earrings allow them to appear more beautiful or "cool". The
statement they want to make is "I am beautiful"or "nice". Now even though tattoos may have the extra
baggage of a message normally added to them (not always, some are designs), they are, in the end,
sought for the same reason.

If you want to be objective, when you bash tattoos, you bash earrings as well. So why are only
tattoos bashed? Because the culture has not accepted them yet. But they will be. Something that is
"new" or "out of place" in a culture will always at first look "bad". Does that mean its bad? No, because
culture is not a norm for deciding what is good and bad. Why? Because it changes as well. It has no
right to judge.

No, if there is a reason that tattoos are out of place, then it has to be objective (not dependent on
culture), and unfortunately, earrings will be dragged along with them.

The bottom line is this: does what is created by this supposedly "all powerful, all knowing" being
called God, need something extra to be made beautiful? (If you have a problem with God, please go
read some other blogs of mine.) Answer: no.

In fact, if one looks at it in a cool light, it's as if we are tying to outdo God at his own game. Why
do we do it then? Because we are so accustomed to decorate inanimate things, or things that we have
made, which many times do need something extra to make them beautiful, being so poor ourselves in
making in relation to what God can do, that we make a very small jump in doing it to animate things,
above all ourselves.

A person is totally beautiful in his own right, hands down, and needs nothing to make him or her
more beautiful. A person's personality, grace, intelligence, ingenuity, humor, etc. "clothe" a person in a
beauty that leaves things like earrings and tattoos in the dust.

I can say with complete certainty that I have NEVER met a woman who has looked more beautiful
with earrings than without. Sure, some women (or men if your a woman) are more beautiful than others
bodily, that will always be the case, if not, then pornography as a business would have fallen through a
long time ago. What is clear as day though is that even above somatic beauty comes the beauty of the
person and how he or she is. If bodily beauty was above "personal" beauty, divorce would be as rare as
pink elephants. People get divorced because they don't see the beauty of the personality of the other
and not the beauty of their body.

The human body will always play a part in a human relationship, but it is by far the least
important, and what we adorn it with, even less. One would pipe up about clothes, but clothes aren't an
extra like earrings. We have to use them, at least up until now. So given that we use them anyway, we
do what we can with them and make them as nice as possible, but they add nothing extra in and of
themselves to the person, they can only try to symbolize the person or 'mark' him. A person's clothes
are clean, because he is clean and noble, if they are beautiful, it is because they symbolize the beauty of
the person wearing them. If they are shabby, such is most likely the state of the person (unless he is
forced to wear them.)

If a person spends time grooming it is to show his or her dignity, not to add something, yet if I
spend 5 hours doing my hair, is that promoting dignity or daintiness?

A person's eyes are more beautiful than the most precious diamonds, and a person's smile a greater
gift than all the gold in the world. A woman who does not worry for dress and makeup and earrings, yet
more for how she is, her personality, I will consider that the greatest treasure. A man or woman who
thinks that tattoos "give" something, for beauty, or even for testimony I would never consider "bad"
(because some tattoos aren't "bad" in themselves like earrings aren't "bad"), but I would consider them
as having missed the point on what really gives testimony or what makes someone beautiful.

Someone who thinks that these things "give" you something, in some way depend on them, like
crutches. "If I have this, I will be better, or more beautiful, or more "cool" in some way." But you are
good and beautiful the way you are, because God is not stupid, and doesn't just "mess up" when he
makes someone.

Your true beauty is seen in who you are. Your testimony is in how you live. That you have family
engraved on your skin tells me something, but if you have a family of eight or ten kids, all happy and
sane, guess what, you just told me infinitely more. You may have "praying hands" on your arm, but if I
see you in church praying and live a moral life in accord with it, guess what, now I got the point. You
wear a ton of makeup and dress snazzy, I'll think you a fake. You dress modest but you have a super
personality and a smile, you got it, I'll consider you a queen.

And for the memorial? Since when have you forgotten something that really left its "mark" on
you? Want to remember something? Skin ain't enough, but time is. You take time every day or every
week to think about it and I promise, I swear, it will be more "engraved" within you than any tattoo
could ever be.

So what is with you and that tattoo?

15. Where is a Good God when you need him?

I have never understood why God gets so verbally beaten up all the time when I have never seen
him do anything that people accuse him of. I have never seen him with a switchblade or throw rocks
down on innocent bystanders. I have never seen him drop an H-bomb or push someone off a building.
So why does he get blamed for all of it?

The constant moaning and complaining that one hears from people who become judge, jury, and
executioner of God, make God, if he really is there, one bad dude. "Why did God take my Mom, my
child, my friend, brother, etc.?" "Why did God allow the tidal wave to crush the city?" "Why did God
allow Stalin to kill millions of his own people? "If God was really good, if he was really there, he
wouldn't let me feel pain, he wouldn't let innocent people die..." The list goes on and on.

What is wrong with this picture? We have stuck this "supposedly" all powerful, all knowing, all
good God into a prison called prejudice. I wonder, does it make sense to say, on the one hand, that God
is this all knowing all good being, and on the other call him a fool because I don't understand what's
up? Doesn't 'all knowing' mean he knows more than a little creature like a man, like me, and maybe
there is something more here than meets the eye?

And what is the prejudice? That we consider the world or universe like a computer and God is the
one who put it together. We think "well, he made it, so he should fix it." Fix what? Who said something
was broken? This sounds just like a man who goes to the Geek Squad at Best Buy and rattles on them
because he can't install something and states with complete certainty that his computer doesn't work.
The circumstances? This guy hasn't the foggiest idea of computers, and the Geek Squad boy, who is a
professional hacker in his free time, being smart, didn't allow administrative rights to him because he
would have installed hundreds of Trojan viruses on his computer without even realizing it.

The ones who 'accuse' or 'blame' or 'curse' God are 'usually' (well, always) the ones who have no
idea who or how he is.

Let's strengthen the point. How can you say "God does not exist, because evil things exist" if your
only reference point for what is 'good' is...God! If you take God out of the picture, I'd like to see you
define what 'good' means. "Well, each person defines what is good then." Oh, so if you define good as
defending life, and I define it as taking it, who is "right"? Well, seeing as I want to kill, and think it's
good, I just kill who thinks its "bad" to kill, and I win, right? Then one says, "No, it's based on culture."
Sorry, culture changes too. Where do you think dictators come from?

o unfortunately those who rattle against God are going to forfeit their own life or security sooner or
later, because the only way we can call something "good" or "bad" is in relation to something that does
not change, and that ain't anything around here. Even the atheist doesn't have to strain to see that what
is material always changes. Imagine if every day the meaning of what was 'good' would change. How
stable would our lives be?

So let's get to the confusion of what we call "good" and "bad". Process of elimination. Are natural
catastrophes bad or evil? Should God "not allow" them? Going back to the computer. This 'bozo' who
doesn't know anything about the computer, decided not to read the manual that came with it, in which it
clearly states he should have caution when plugging it in lest he be bombarded with millions of feisty
electrons running through his body. So he decides not to look at what he is doing and tries to plug his
thumb in with the wire. What happens? He starts cursing the computer and the socket. Surprised?

So I ask, why are we so surprised then when it actually takes place, given the fact that we aren't
blind and we know, with all the science and experience we have, where, how, and even sometimes
when a natural catastrophe happens? Why build your house on a fault or next to the beach if I know
that a tidal wave could come by? Isn't that as dumb as not reading the manual of a computer? Why do
we blame God or nature for our stupidities? Nature and matter in general is never evil. We can't get
angry that the earth sometimes gets "labor pains" or wants to roll over to get "more comfortable" for a
few more hundred years. Since when was it a rock's fault, or God's, that it fell, something it was made
to do, in the first place, and happened to fall on my head, if I have a head to know this could happen
anyway, and to avoid it?
Nature isn't evil because it doesn't know what it is doing, and God isn't 'evil' for making it that way,
or simply not there, just because nature makes me uncomfortable sometimes. God gave each a head, we
need to use it and read the "manual" of nature.

Is death bad? If we were supposed to stay here yes. If not, then, once again, why complain? IF this
"wonderful" earth is not as wonderful as what lies ahead and this 'time' that we have here is only to
prepare me for the next step, then, I'm sorry, complaining makes no sense.

Perhaps...one of the reasons that things aren't so nifty here is precisely to remind us that what is
here is not enough. Maybe we aren't happy here precisely because we are not supposed to be? "No!"
you say, Oh, since when did God hire a substitute? Why do you keep on buying new cars and looking
for new girls (boys)? Don't you get sick after a while from this apparently unending 'searching' for
something that will finally make you happy and going to parties to pick up crumbs of happiness off the
floor?

Sorry again, but even death has a reason, and either you reject it and go crazy and curse God till
you are blue in the face, or you face the facts, and accept the truth that we simply are not supposed to
stick around here.

So with natural catastrophe and death, and anything else that one can think to blame God for out of
the way, the only thing left to blame for anything 'evil' is....you got it....ourselves.

Anything that exists is good in some way, otherwise God is really stupid. So there must be
something that exists that causes evil, and it ain't God or nature. That leaves us. How? By twisting
something that God made in a pretty intelligent way and making it 'unnatural', 'not normal', 'not good',
'not intelligent' in other words, evil.

Whether sex whenever or wherever is good or bad we'll see in another blog, for now, killing again,
as a universally accepted evil. Someone who kills thinks its pretty nifty. Why is it evil? Well, he didn't
give life to that person, what blasted right does he have to take it away? If someone is here to prepare
himself for something else, since when was the killer appointed the hour glass to say when the time
was up for the other? So either he is God or he is on the moon.

Why does God 'allow' a person to be evil? Same reason he 'allows' you to be 'good' or 'happy'. He
didn't want to make mindless robots, or ten million other species of mindless trees. Someone might
think it would have been better to be a rock, non-feeling, neither happy or unhappy. But anyone who
has been happy know that would be quite boring. So he "allowed" you to be free and to choose whether
you want to be "happy", meaning to realize yourself, be perfect, or be 'good' or... "happy" (TOTALLY
unhappy) with yourself by doing what is 'unnatural' or 'evil', spitting in God's face, and doing what you
want.

Sooo.... God is there and he is good. If he wasn't there, then there ain't no good. And he is good,
because he lets me be happy with what is "good", which he made, and I'll be happier still with what
comes.

Conclusion: I found a Good God, anybody in need of him?

16. Celibacy under fire


If celibacy gets a bad rap these days, its only because sex has become as common as smoking. The
word though has an ironic twist to it. It came from the Latin word caelibare, which meant 'unmarried' -
the seemingly normal state of those engaging in "marital relations" in contemporary society.

Who complains about it? Those who don't know what it is, and those who fear it. Now, IF we
remain with the dry modern definition of celibacy of "abstaining from sex", guess what? They're right.
It would be completely idiotic. BUT, since when did we do things without any reason whatsoever? Do
we eat for no reason? So the only reason that some call celibacy “anti-natural” and “psychologically
damaging” is because the don't see the reason for it. Hmm, well, maybe they're right, maybe there isn't
a good reason, and if that is the case, then there is something horribly, horribly wrong with a lot of
people. Why? Because about one billion people in the world today follow or give reverence to a man
named Christ who was...drum role please...celibate! Wo...heavy man.

O.K. so some would pipe in and say that we don't have enough historical datum to prove that he
was celibate, well, if we look at the most influential people in the history of mankind outside of
scientists and inventors who claim to follow this God-man, those of whom we have better historical
datum and who actually dedicated their entire lives to bettering society in helping the poor, starting
schools, starting hospitals, causing positive political revolutions, or promoting peace, guess what, .... a
lot of them were celibate. If you don't want to go too far back to antiquity just look at Mother Theresa
and John Paul II. It makes no difference what religion you are from or if you are religious at all. Facts
are facts, and these two did more in one lifetime than most nations will do within a century. To their
funerals came all the leaders of the earth, to these who were completely totally....celibate. So if these
two are "psychologically unstable" for living in such a "weird" lifestyle, what in the world are we?
Who, may I ask, is going to come to our funeral?

So, either these guys are crazy, or we're not seeing something. Why would someone want to 'give
up' or avoid something so fundamental as marriage, or if marriage doesn't matter to you, why would
they avoid something so intensely pleasurable as sex, or 'having fun' with the opposite sex?

Maybe, just maybe, because I don't need it to be happy. Maybe, just maybe, if we look at the
options for more than two seconds - between sex and self donation (charity: that act whereby I look to
help someone in some need that they have, be it moral, material, psychological, political, etc.) - we
might find that someone can be happier being charitable than in marriage or having sex! Wo... diggin
deep again man.

What is the problem? Most think that pleasure=happiness, yea? So why is it that I hear of case
after case of drinking, depression and suicide of some after having gone through a few one-night
stands? Since when did depression=happiness? Are these people really 'happy' after having followed
their ancestral animal instincts? I don't think either that most football players are getting a lot of
pleasure out of being bashed on the field, but when they win, they sure are happy.

The facts? The facts are I have never met someone who knew what celibacy was for and were
unhappy living it: to have more time to help more people, to give an example to those who can't be or
aren't married, or to those not able to have intercourse that you can live a full life, to show that pleasure
isn't everything, and for those religious folk out there, to show how the way this God-man lived on
earth really can make you happy.

Is all this a little too dense for you? Don't worry, we'll see marriage, sex, love, and other interesting
stuff in future blogs. Hold on tight and keep on reading.

17. Leftovers from the Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code is pretty much old news, but the blatant, abundant errors found in this cocktail
still permit for entertainment. Most of the dainties in Dan's book are explained in the following
document: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg7742g3_44d8w9wjfb.

The real problem though of this book is its cool superficiality. Nothing is taken seriously because
truth is taken as a joke. When fact becomes fable and history a hoax, is there any way to take one iota
of what is written as....simply normal?

Not even OZ or Wonderland come close to the illusionary world that Dan creates with his fallacies,
weaving them in and out to create his secure, impenetrable dreamland where absolutely everything,
every reality, is twisted and changed, except himself.

A lot of people will call this courage, in reality, it's simply cowardice. A person twists truth and
reality when they are afraid of it, when they fear of what demands will be made on him because of it.

To admit to who and how God is means to kneel and accept that I don't have control over
everything, something quite courageous - and commonsensical - go figure. To give my opinion about a
God, "my God", with absolutely no proof or argument, and then state and do what I want simply
reminds me of a spoiled four year old who can't get his way, so he pouts and says "No!" refusing
everything that his parents offer him.

Let's be clear, it takes courage to give your life, in war, for others, something that every normal
person will admit to. That means giving something up, letting go, suffering, feeling pain, feeling in the
moment that the mortal bullet sears my flesh, total helplessness. But I fall courageous, a man, a martyr
of humanity.

It takes that same courage to give up and let go of your ideas and feelings and what you think or
want to think is real to embrace the often searing, painful stroke of truth that, for a moment, engulfs me
in helplessness and insecurity - but only for a moment.

Then I stand again triumphant and courageous, with a security much stronger than my little dream
world could ever give me. God can hit me with what he wants, because he made me and knows what is
best, I don't complain and hide like a coward because 'it just don't feel good'...good grief.

What the world needs is more martyrs and less wimps when it comes to truth. So what are you?

18. Science class with an Atheist

If we had more Philip Pullmans in the world, we would have an overpopulation of theists.
Thankfully there is only one of him. It seems that the more convinced an Atheist is about his (belief!?!)
in God being a "fairytale", the more he is found to be sweepingly convincing, with proof upon proof,
that God is something quite the contrary. A dialog with somebody like this is rather invigorating,
because there is very little arguing to do. One is literally forced to "believe" in the end that the whole
explanation of the Atheist is one big inside joke for the ridiculousness of it. But lest the author be called
judgmental, he shall let the reader decide.

Science is always fascinating. By it we learn about the wonderful world around us, and doing
science is fun and easy, although some may beg to differ. What I remember from grade school though
is that it basically consisted in taking one or a few of the particular senses we have and finding out new
and interesting things about anything I darn well please to know about. So I used my eyes and looked at
a plant, examined it, saw that it was green, asked myself if there was something which may have
caused (a rather unnerving word for Atheists) it to be green, then saw that a piece, or many pieces, of
glass bent in a certain way allowed me a closer look (microscope), and found that certain things called
cells appeared to allow this to be. Cool. Then I would continue on...

Now it may be that Atheists go to very special schools where they learn to do science in a very
special way, or they just don't like science, or maybe they don't know what science is, or maybe science
is also a fairytale, I must admit I haven't a clue, but when they talk about science in relation to God, I
can only assume that one must exist, because what they tell me flies in the face of simple common
sense.

If you were to tell me that God can't exist because there is no way in science to prove this, then I
must either admit of extreme stupidity, or the phrase simply indicates a few missing marbles upstairs.
Since when did something I could not sense not or never exist? How, may I ask, do you prove this?
Would you say it is 'self-evident'? Let me ask you, what if, when I was born, my Mom died, and there
happened to be no pictures of her, no video or sound recording, and no documents from her because
she was an illegal alien. Can I in any way sense her? Not that I know of. So how are you going to prove
that I had a mother? "Well, science shows us..." Yea? Well science as a body of info about 'connections'
between things or certain things.. oh no, here it comes again... causing other things to come to be, can
tell me all it wants, but I still don't sense my Mommy.

BUT if I were to use this exact same argument from my friend the Atheist, I would be
unfortunately forced to admit that there was a God, because all these 'connections' or (blah) causes
between things would lead me to think that something started and 'caused' it all. I tell you my friend is a
great comedian.

"No, wait, there is more!" he says (laughing maybe) Did you know as well that something can
come from nothing

"Wo, that is deep." I say. This Atheist has got one heck of a science. I have never ever once
observed in anything I have studied in science that this would be the case. From what I see in biology,
chemistry, physics etc. everything has come from something. So when he says that the Big Bang just
sort of happened and morality just sort of evolved and came to be from amoral specimens, I have to say
I stand in ecstasy of this guru of scientific thought. He must have a mind that can transcend (I'm sorry,
another bad word) the very fabric of this world (darn, I forgot, there is nothing that transcends what is
material).

Or simply it's just quite uncommonsensical.

But our science class is not over, next topic, consciousness is completely material. Oh. I'm sure
that we can see that under a microscope. No? Well I'm certain that we can stick it in a test tube and
swish it around with something and 'something' will come up. No? Well certainly because this
wonderful ability to 'connect experiences' comes from something material, it must also be material.
"After all something can't come from nothing." says my Atheist friend. Eh?! Didn't you just say... Ah,
never mind.

Since when can you show that there is no immateriality by something material, if it's not even
material. What is the difference between this and saying that nothing is alive because rocks aren't alive,
or no animal flies because dogs don't fly, or water comes from trees because I don't see the H2O
making it all up?

But if we say that because matter is seemingly screwed up (we end up trying to fix it our entire
lives, or avoiding it when it comes down on us, or getting sick of it when it corrupts) it is rather
doubtful that, being as screwed as it is, that it would be the (gulp) cause of everything else. If I would
dare to say that maybe any order that exists is by something immaterial because what is material is
naturally disordered, em... Ha! Ha! Hey, you're right, that was pretty funny.

I'm sure that sooner or later my Atheist friend is going to find all the neurons and gens that allow
us to think and imagine and be conscious, and love, and be courageous, and..., or what he "thinks" or
"imagines" they could be. I'm sure that this secret Pullman Dust is just waiting to be found in order to
revolutionize the whole world order. I'm also sure that he will be long gone before he finds it.

But maybe he doesn't have to worry because in Pullman's world, there are many worlds and I'm
sure he will jump into one where time goes twice as slow (don't worry, he will find the stick shift of
time too) and he will have plenty of time to encounter it. After all, time is a material thing too....right?
(You can order a special Pullman microscope to see it, it's golden too, so you can put it next to the
compass on the piano and it doesn't stand out.)

And heaven? Nope, doesn't exist either. Oh. No evidence for it. So... what happens to us when we
die? You go to the underworld of course. Oh! I see...that there is no evidence for that either?! And what
do we do there? Nothing...in particular that is. I'm sure there is a bar somewhere...maybe.

Is there any scientific evidence for there not to be a heaven? Eh, no, but... if you are material, then
material you must remain. Oh, I'm sure there is scientific evidence for that too. No? Well I certainly
could not believe that an Atheist would just tell me what he "believes" seeing as belief is useless to
him.

Now what appears to be empirically evident is that man strives, works, suffers to project himself in
this world, to build things up, to aim for the future. For what future? What future do you have if after
you kick the bucket there ain't noth'n or a waiting room (Hades) where you are waiting for.... um,
noth'n? What is the freaking sense of so many sacrifices and so much work. I may as well go on a sex
and murder and robbing rampage,... no, no, that would not be nice, well, since there is nothing to guide
any type of authoritative morality, na, what the heck. If morality came from monkeys, and monkeys are
animals, and tigers are animals, then I think I will go act like a tiger, get myself back to my roots. Don't
you love Atheistic logic? I'm sure there was a King Kong race of apes and we haven't found the bones
yet, and out morality came from him. He treated that poor woman pretty well.

And while we are at throwing out morality, don't forget authority as well. Authority,-bad-bad,
Pullman, bad, very bad. How dare anyone tell me what to do. What is that you say, you don't want
anyone taking your wallet or killing your wife? Just don't say that too loud or I might have to turn you
in to the anti-authority, em, um,...government, uh, authority, um, ... it's an awfully nice day isn't it?
I have to say that if I ever need a comedian in a pinch, I know where to go. Science class? Ah, yes,
we were in science class weren't we. As we were saying....

19. Can reality be known?

Contrary to popular belief, reality can be known and understood. Surprising? Not if you open your
eyes to what is in front of your nose. Unfortunately noses are now overlooked, so what is in front of
them one thinks would pop up next on the radar. Wrong! That's overlooked too. In fact, reality has been
overlooked simply because common sense has become so uncommon that truth, something that was
taken long ago as objective and universal, has been blackmailed into being bleak superficial opinion.
Having grown terribly tired of the new line added to the song of 'Old McDonald Had a Farm' - "Here a
truth, there a truth, everywhere a truth truth." - I decided to give some consolation to those who had the
intuition that this was not the case and tell them that they are right.

Truth can be known, and that most of the time by using common sense. Either what I know is right
or it is wrong. There is no middle ground. If I don't know something I admit it, I clarify that I am
searching for an answer. I say "It might be that..." But to say "I think" or "In my opinion" smells of
prejudice right off the bat.

There are some things that are easy to know and so commonsensical that we would consider insane
the person who denied it. Anyone who defiantly states that grass is pink, well, there might be someone
who listens to him (the same one who got drunk with him). But then we have those who just as easily
state there is no truth and no one seems to see its equally ridiculous position. Getting drunk has
apparently become more common. Go figure. When I ask these 'greatly inspired' what truth is they
either stare at me as if I had spit out the worst insult which had ever entered their ears, or they will
calmly, innocently, affirm the very thing they tried to deny. "There is no truth!" Something that is very,
maybe....true?! That is just about as crazy as saying words don't exist -oops, I'm sorry, you didn't get
that.

When a contemporary artist who has painted, ahem, a blue square upon a canvas tells me that it is
the "Mediterranean Sea in a moment of uneasiness" my admiration is drawn immediately to the great
abyss of absurdity that I contemplate in the most uncommonsensical statement ever uttered by a "son of
a chimp".

Truth is knowledge of reality-the way things objectively are-to the sane. You might not like it, but
isn't it time to deal with it?

To know if, say, God exists or not, is a little bit harder to find out, but how much? Does it mean
using a few more neurons? Yes. Does it means thinking a little bit more? Yes. Might it mean changing
your world vision? Sorry, but I'm sure you will get over it. Welcome to the blog that sets wonder
ablaze.

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